Once Upon A Dream
by Marlos7
Summary: The path to love began when they were young and innocent. A Descendants story.
1. 1) Once Upon A Time

It all begins the way most stories do, in the middle of a new change. What, pray tell, was this new change?

It was the meeting of two people so dissimilar that their meeting had to be through their mutual friend Jay. Who were these two kids? Mal, daughter of Maleficent, and Carlos, son of Cruella.

This is their story.

Mal was having the worst day. This day got worse when upon arriving to the agreed location she and Jay picked out for themselves she caught sight of someone unexpected.

She resisted the urge to grit her teeth. She resisted the urge to feel anything other than loathing towards that boy.

"What's he doing here?"

Mal was not one to beat around the bush.

Jay, likewise, didn't scare off by a little confrontation. "He's joining us today."

"Is he now?" Mal directed her gaze to the boy and felt a thrill at the fear he showed. She didn't even care that he always looked at everyone like that. This was the only person on this rotten Isle who feared _her. _She didn't care why, she just cared that it happened. "Why should you?" She all but purred to Carlos, enjoying the way he was closing in on himself. He was younger than her, just about her height, maybe a tad shorter. What she had over him was greater than any height.

"I--"

"Mal, he's in. I'd never lead you astray, remember?" Jay said, loud and clear.

Mal'd heart thudded in her chest. Jay was fearless to a fault. If anyone heard him say this, _understood him, _he'd be dead meat.

"Keep up, puppy. I don't like being slowed down."

That was the farthest she would give in. She saw the open relief in his face and that twisted up something inside. She told herself it was disgust making her sick but felt doubt.

The first thing Mal wanted Carlos to prove was that he could keep up with them and the best way was to show that he could listen and do as he was told to do. The connection to dogs wasn't lost on Mal. She honestly couldn't see the appeal of dogs. There used to be dogs here but those were thoughts she didn't want to think about.

To prove himself Carlos has to spray paint their logo in broad daylight. 1) it would make it clear that he had the balls to do what was asked of him and 2) everyone would see he was part of their crew and know not to mess with him.

In actuality this was what Jay had been asking: to protect Carlos. Carlos was the soft kind of villain that everyone liked to pick on. He was a nerd, spoke softly, and never went out of his way to hurt anyone. Most of the younger kids left him alone, even liked him, it was the older ones that liked to rough him up a bit.

Mal wasn't sure if this was the right way to go about things with Carlos. It was too close to enabling for her taste. But Carlos drew their symbol, got a pat in the back from Jay, a smirk from Mal and just like that his initiation was over.

"Let's raise a little hell, boys." Mal giggled and led her crew to a day of evil fun.

**I've had the worst time last year. I won't bore you with details, but I will say that I'm back and ready to share this story. I'll definitely update sooner this time. On Thursdays and Mondays. So if anyone's reading this, I'll have a chapter ready for Monday. :) You don't have to review but I do hope you enjoy my story.**

**\- Marlos7**


	2. 2) Old Enemies

**You guys don't have to read the first book but I will reference and add some events that happened in the book. Also, I won't always but if I can I'll update other times than just Mondays and Thursdays.**

**~~~~**

With Carlos a member of Mal and Jay's two-member (previously) group things slowly fell so into place that Mal allowed herself to believe that things wouldn't change at all in their little group.

Of course that wasn't what happened. What happened was this:

"Where's the nerd?" Mal asked. That was the first and only time she's asked but it felt one to many already.

"He'll be here soon." Jay said, ever the patient one.

Mal resisted the urge to snap, pursing her lips. It annoyed her that Carlos, stupid, idiotic, _weak, _Carlos was getting to her. He wasn't even half--

"There he is." Jay announced snapping Mal from her thoughts.

Mal was not about to sigh in relief when she froze. Carlos was there alright. Now, the where that there was isn't important. What was important was that _he _was with _her. _Who is that her? Evie Grimhilde, of course.

Mal's number one enemy.

Let me make it very clear that Mal hated her. Absolutely loathed her something fierce she would tear anyone and anything in her way just to be able to tear her down. The reason for this hate wasn't important. What was important was that Mal **hated Evie with everything she had.**

So, now that I've made that clear, the heightened sense of betrayal that Mal hadn't even prepared for, because the one causing that feeling to happen was _Carlos,_ can be understood better.

Jay, who'd been waiting for a witty remark, and who'd been looking at Carlos with a bored expression, turned in the exact moment Mal's feelings of betrayal settled in her face and was shocked for a second because he didn't understand what could've caused that visible reaction on Mal who would lay down her life before she left herself vulnerable.

Jay had to do a double take to Carlos because yes it was Carlos Mal was looking at. _Holy Hell._

Mal, without noticing, clenched her hands, fisted her hands and was about to stride over, show that _witch _who was boss when Jay gained his senses and stopped her.

"Whoa, hey, what're you doing?"

"How dare she come back here." Mal hissed.

It was only then Jay saw that the person Carlos was with was Evie. Oh. _Oh. _Weird because all of Jay's instincts pointed to Carlos, not Evie, as Mal's source of anger.

A problem to ponder another time.

"I know, Mal, but if you fight here right outside the school and a teacher catches you," Jay trailed off on purpose.

Mal grit her teeth, eyes flashing a vivid green, but Jay knew it was only anger. Anger she wasn't stupid to act on.

"Come on." Mal ordered, leading the way into the school, catching everyone's attention. If she were in a better mood she would've been proud that everyone was truly afraid of her in that moment. Unfortunately she was _pissed off._Jay sighed as he followed knowing nothing good would come out of this.

**~~~~****I know this story is taking its time but I'm (so far) updating daily. Plus I know where I'm going and how it will end so you guys just read and enjoy. To my shy readers: just you reading and liking my story means a lot to me. **


	3. 3) Wicked Plans

**I'm a bit under the weather so if this chapter sucks its because of that. I'll definitely rest up so the next chapter won't be until Thursday, but don't worry I'm not quitting on this story.**

*****

Mal was pissed off that whole day. Nothing and no one messed with her. The sad part was that she would've loved the attention she was getting any other day.

No.

Instead, she planned and planned. What did she plan in that pretty little head of hers?

Let's just say the most wicked thing she's proud of to date.

But first she had to handle the traitor. That stupid twerp. She knew he was always going to be trouble. Just not the good kind.

She found him before lunch at his locker.

She wanted nothing more than to slam close his locker, scare the hell out of him a bit, but no. Fear was for the other suckers in the Isle. What he needed was a small dose of wicked.

Softening her voice to a purr, she said, "Hey, Carlos."

He jumped anyway. She laughed, keeping with her role. "Jumpy much?"

"I-no-I'm-" He wasn't going to stop stammering any time soon so she decided to push through with her plan.

"Your Mom is going away for the weekend to the spa in the other Isle, right?"

"I...yeah?"

Good. He was catching on.

"So," she couldn't help the small twirl of hair that she did. Boys were simple. She didn't understand why they fell for her tricks. They just did. It's what boys did. She was using that to her advantage now as she smiled--not smirked--smiled at Carlos, "can we throw a party there? It'll be a little thing. Something to pass the time? School was such a droll today like you wouldn't believe." The best lies are sprinkled with truth. That's how you own others. Boys were idiots.

"I..." It's important to understand that Carlos was a boy who trusted easily. He didn't see other people's tricks. He just saw the person. So yeah he fell for Mal's lie. "That won't be too bad, I guess."

Mal clapped her hands excitedly. Allowing some of her elation at having fooled him show in her very girly behavior.

"You're a lifesaver! Okay, I'm going to find Jay and tell him." She turned away and didn't bother to act any less excited. Sprinkled truth, remember?

If she had bothered to see his reaction she would've seen that he had a smile on his face as he scratched his hair. He was excited about the party, too, but for very different reasons.

Jay had been right. Mal just needed a bit of time before she accepted him as a part of her crew.

He remembered he was still in school and took that smile off his face but he was so, so happy.

*****

**When I first wrote this story it was first person so my readers couldn't see everything but damn I even got to me writing Carlos' bit. Anyway, thanks for reading. If I'm feeling good tomorrow I'll write another chapter. They're short I know but this story is nowhere near started. If it's boring, sorry. I enjoy the build-up.**

**Also, if I can't do daily updates Monday and Thursdays are the days when I update, ok? I have another story in the works and a personal project I'm working on, so bear with me. I love writing. It's my thing. :)**


	4. 4) A Party To Remember

**I was hospitalized so that should explain why I've been off the grid but noq im back and ready to continue.*******

With the plan in motion and Jay being the hardest obstacle because he wanted a reason why she was going to extremes to get revenge on a girl she didn't even know.

Mal sidestepped that by invoking their pledge of loyalty. Meaning Jay couldn't betray each other's trust and would do anything for each other. No matter what.

Once he was roped into getting the best food for this barely thought of party (i.e. a scam but a fun one), it was all abiut going to others and get the ball rolling by word of mouth.

Soon enough everyone who picked on Carlos (almost everyone) and hated Mal (Uma and Hook respectfully) changed their tune at someone going out their way to make a party. A party meant scores of popularity. And the best way to earn that was through food and with Mal's reputation everyone expected her to outdo everyone.

Luckily for her Jay had already started saving the best food for the party. As hard a time as he gave her he would go through fire for her.

Soon enough it was time for the party. Mal was one of the first people to arrive and make sure that all the decorations they had done earlier were still in place.

She was almost satisfied. That is until she saw Evie. Talking. With Carlos. Again.

It was like that girl had nothing better to do that take away Mal's things.

She stopped, shaking her head at her thoughts. Carlos wasn't hers. The mere idea of it was ridiculous. He was accepted by Mal, was a part of her crew, why would he jeapordize that by associating with the enemy?

Mal busied herself playing hostess, keeping an eye on the clock, and it was actually an hour after everyone had arrived that she even noticed Anthony was standing next to her.

"You want to dance, princess?"

There were so many things wrong with that saying and Mal would've given him a peace of her mind when she saw that Carlos was on his way to her.

"Good idea." She said and left demonstrating with her actions that she was dismissing him. She reached Carlos and pulled him onto the dance floor. He was so stiff that Mal was sure he would push her away, but once he saw that she was just swaying to the music he stopped and swayed along. "Anthony was messing with me." She told him.

"Oh."

Mal looked at him. He was younger than her and it showed in their height. She was a tad taller than him. Of course she was wearing her boots so that was affecting it a bit.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing. It makes sense."

Mal laughed. "Why? You think I wouldn't dance with you?"

"Why would you?"

Mal shrugged, forgetting her anger at Anthony's pretension and usage of the word _princess. _

"Why not?"

Carlos grinned at that but didn't elaborate further. The song ended and they both went their seperate ways.

Mal had been so distracted that it was seeing Carlos bring Evie a cup of soda that made her blood boil and got back on track with the plan.

What was this plan? That's simple: Cruella had a closet filled with animal traps and if someone were to stumble into it it would cause a reaction for sure. Mal's plan was simple once you set them down on paper. Party? Check. Evie attending? Check. Cause her to feel physical. excrutiating pain? That all depended on grtting her in the very special closet.

Of course no evil deed goes unpunished because as soon as Mal was able to trick Evie into heading inside the closet and closing the door behind her, someone _shoved _her back and the door was opened before Evie finished screaming for help.

No one in the party was interested in the Mal-Evie feud so they missed the best part. The one who had shoved Mal and came to Evie's rescue was none other than _Carlos_ himself.

It was the shock of someone so docile do something like that that made Mal pause and stare at him.

"Why are you doing this, Mal? What did she ever do to you?"

"I don't have to explain anything to you." She snapped and made her way out of his house, past all the partygoers who were now noticing something was actually wrong. Of course they were to late to get the real scoop so rumors were the order of the day.

None of them were close to the truth but rumors usually aren't.

*****

**This was difficult to write because my glasses were stolen in the jospital but I kept on writing til I finished this chapter. You're all welcome. Ignore grammar errors. I'll fix them once I get a new pair of glasses.**


	5. 5) Wicked Promise

**Its safe to say that this story is going to be very different than the movie, plus, itll be a bit full of grammar errors until I can get my new glasses. Pray for me dear readers, because I dont have my id either and I hope that won't be a problem. Anyway, enough of my problems. Glad you guys are liking my story so far.*******

Mal had no idea that Jay had followed after she had left. He wasn't the only one. Unbeknowst to either of them Carlos and Evie had also followed as well.

"Mal, wait. What happened?" Jay asked although he had seen Carlos shoving her back. There's an unspoken agreement never to talk about weakness in the Isle. This situation qualified under those rules.

"She steals everything from me, Jay, that's what happened!" Mal exclaimed. Normally she wouldn't have an outburst, but she thought they were alone, so she can be forgiven for this out of character emotional behavior.

Jay was surprised by this statement. "What do you mean?"

Mal sighed, rubbing her face tiredly. The cool outfit she had chosen didn't protect from the cold and she was starting to shiver. "I meant what I said," when Jay only stared at her, Mal sighed deeply and revealed the real reason she hated Evie. "It was my fifth birthday party. Mom sent out invitations and decorated but no one showed up. Everyone had gone to _Evie's _party instead even though it wasn't her birthday for another two weeks! Mom swore revenge. She spent my whole birthday ranting. It was my birthday and my Mom forgot about me because of her."

Before Jay could think of something to say, Evie stepped out from the shadows saying, "I didn't even want that party."

Mal and Jay tensed up until they saw it was only Evie, with Carlos standing behind her, watching the scene unfold in silence.

"What are you doing here?" Mal snapped. "Why are you following me?"

Evie raised her chin defiantly, "What you did was wrong. I wanted to know why...and I'm sorry. I never meant to do that to you. Like I said, I didn't even want a party. I wanted to go to your party. I-I wanted to be your friend."

Mal scoffed.

"Really," Evie turned to Carlos, "Carlos knows. He said you were cool enough to let him be part of your crew, so he was sure you were cool enough to start over with me." Carlos only nodded to this.

Mal was shocked to hear this. Carlos thought better than she was capable of. It made something inside of her burst with uncomfortable nervous warmth.

"I can't start over yet; this was a private conversation after all, but we can both go our own way. No more trouble. Wicked promise."

"Wicked promise." Evie repeated with a nod.

"And you," Mal said directing her words at Carlos only, "your house, your rules. I overstepped. Let's leave it at that." Mal said and Carlos nodded.

"Fair."

Mal shivered at the cold reply. This side of Carlos was something Mal hadn't thought possible but he had to have some iron within to have survived Cruella's and the Isle's abuse all these years.

Mal felt newfound respect for the little punk. And he was little. His hair kept him equal in height to Mal but otherwise he was the youngest one. The youngest one with impossible strength. Strength that Mal wanted to see more of but not directed at her.

"Walk me home." Mal told Jay and walked without waiting to see if he was following her or not.

That was the end of that problem.

Mal did keep her word. She left Evie alone. More importantly, she left Carlos alone with Evie. Things were still a bit strained between them ever since the party that shall not be named.

But just because things were strained between Mal and Carlos didn't mean that things were messed up with Carlos and Evie. Things were going so well in their friendship Carlos showed her into his treehouse.

The treehouse worked as a place of refuge against the bullying from school and the abuse from home. It was also a place he could nerd out. It was his only solace in the Isle so the fact that he let a stranger in, a stranger who was becoming his friend of course, was a big deal.

It was during one of the first few visits that this new event happened. It was just a random day where Evie was helping him with an antenna he was working when he connected two seperate bits of radio together with the TV antenna that caused a pulse of energy.

A pulse so strong it sent Carlos and Evie backwards into the hard all of the treehouse.

"Whoa." Carlos said in surprise. The TV suddenly had on channels its never had before. "I told you. There were more channels." He flipped the channels and it was true. He had found the jackpot.

But just as easily as it had come it went away.

"Guess we need better cables." Evie said rubbing her sore head.

"It still works." Carlos said with a grin.

"You were right. I'll never mistrust you ever again."

"You better not."

They went on to more joking and teasing but this wasn't what had happened. Carlos' attempt at getting more TV channels had worked for only a second but what he and no one else knew was that it had created a crack on the magical barrier and deep within a third little Isle where all of Maleficent's belongings, including her castle, her scepter and her faithful raven Diabolo awakened.

Maleficent had been sitting in her throne room annoyed at the boredom when she felt Diabolo and her magic scepter come to life.

She grinned to herself. The boredom would soon come to an end.

*******As you guys know I'm working on getting my glasses. Its thanks to the fanfiction app that I can write new chapters easy. Semi easy. Anyway, ignore grammar errors and be patient with me. I'm like a blind turtle but you guys know the story of the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. In a way, this story is a good distraction from my current crappy situation. Hope you guys like this chapter. Until next time.**


	6. 6) Plans Made

**I got excited with this chapter. We're almost to the end of the beginning. Enjoy.**

*****

Where was our favorite leading lady in all of this? She was sleeping. No, not a pun on the whole Maleficent-Aurora thing, she was just sleeping. She was having a strange dream. She was in a very bright place and her Mother was standing in front of her, hand reaching out for Mal. Mal wanted to reach back but for some reason she was frozen in place.

"Little dragon," Maleficent sighed out. An old childhood nickname that Mal thought she'd never hear again.

She awoke from this fantasy dream to a dry mouth and her Mother standing above her bed. Mal sat up with a gasp.

"Mom, what--"

"There's magic in the Isle."

"What?"

"Can't you feel it?" Maleficent asked.

Truth was the more she woke up the more she felt the slight hint of magic pulsing from all around her. "But how?"

"The how doesn't matter, Mal, all that matters is that you're going to get my scepter from my Island."

"Your--" Now Mal understood. Her Mother's punishment was to have everything within reach but cursed to never touch her things till the end of time. It was a cruel and unusual punishment. Mal had to give props to the goody-two-shoes that came up with that one. "Right. I can do that for you, Mom."

"Good. You go tomorrow. Get ready tonight."

With those last words, she stepped out of Mal's room. Leaving the girl to think of her plan of action.

*****

Her plan of action was easy. It was to get Jay to go with her as a way to survive the vermin infested waters and cursed Isle they had to go to.

It would only take a day to do everything but it was still quite a journey.

Mal found Jay after that. Since school was out of the day she knew he'd be out trying to steal new (old) things from many people around them for his Father's store. Mal found him sitting on the roof overlooking the main square where all the vendors sold everything. Definitely the best vantage point to see who he could steal from.

"Hey." She said, after climbing up and taking a seat next to him. Jay hummed in response, watching everyone below them like a hawk. "Something happened." Mal said, and this caught his attention enough to get him to look over at her. For a second Mal entertained the idea of telling him about her dream, but quickly scratched that off and said, "Mom told me that there's a break in the barrier- A small one!" She added quickly and tried to ignore the guilt she felt when he visibly deflated. "It allowed a small amount of magic to come into the Isle and so Mom knows that her scepter, Dragon's Eye, is active in the other Isle."

Jay laughed. "You mean the other, empty Isle that is probably full of danger?"

"Yes." Jay laughed again.

"Want me to ask for your help? I will." Mal gave him a smile and he returned it. She wasn't sure if he knew she was serious, because she would really appreciate his help on this.

"No, but we're going to need all the help we can get." He said and almost like an answer to his words, Evie walked over from where she climbed up. She was hesitant and looked awkward, but kept etching forward, even when Mal turned around. She mostly spent time with Carlos, and Jay did think she was cool now that Mal didn't have a problem with her, but Mal didn't know how to act around her most of the time.

Still she kept coming toward them both, and one look at Jay and Mal knew that he had the idea that she could go with us.

"No."

"Mal."

"Jay."

"Um...do you want me to go?"

They both stared at her. It would have been funny that her question fit what Jay and Mal were arguing about, but this was serious.

"Can she go?" Jay asked, and this caused Evie to look confused between them all.

"She-"

"It'll be dangerous." Jay pointed out again. And Mal wanted to roll my eyes, because he really needed to stop making sense.

"Fine, whatever." She turned to Evie. "Come here." She looked surprised by this, but approached them and sat on Jay's other side. "Jay and I are going in search on something important for my Mom." She nodded slowly, looking down at all the little trinkets being exchanged below them. "No, this is something not here. It's probably going to be found in a different Isle inside the barrier." Evie looked at Jay for confirmation and when he nodded she turned back to Mal.

"But that could be dangerous."

"Which is why it might be beneficial to have you tag along." Jay said and Mal gave one firm nod, still not sold on the idea, but it was better than nothing. Carlos would also go with them, and with Evie, Mal might actually be able to get Mom's scepter for her.

"I see..." Mal sighed, waiting for her to say no, but she surprised her by saying, "Yes."

"Really?" Jay said and Mal was glad, because she didn't want to let on how surprised and how half relieved she was.

"Yes." She smiled at both of them, and her smile didn't lose strength even when Mal didn't return it, instead she went down to business.

"Alright, so we get Carlos and head out tomorrow? There should be some books in the library about the the Isle right? A picture at least, to see where we might be able to locate Mom's Forbidden Fortress?" Mal suggested and Jay nodded to this.

"Doesn't Carlos have a lot of books?" Jay asked, and Mal shrugged.

"About the Isle? I don't think so. Not a lot of people study this place."

"Worth a shot. Unless you prefer to sneak into school at night." Jay grinned, he was always up for anything.

"Right. Might as well break the news at the same time." Mal conceded. And so as they began to walk towards Hell Hall to let Carlos know of their plan, Evie asked,

"So, um, what brought his quest on?"

Jay looked at Mal, and she knew he wasn't going to say anything since it was her Mom's plan from the beginning.

"Today Mom told me that something happened to the barrier. Who knows what, but it allowed some magic in, enough to awaken the Scepter. Mom thinks that in time, she might be able to use it to bring down the barrier. But I don't know. Whatever broke the barrier would have to happen again, to a greater degree and it might be able to break through." As Mal said this she tried to be as nonchalant as possible. It wouldn't do to get excited about this only for the plan to flounder at the last minute.

But there was a bit of excitement starting to grow at her development. Jay agreed to help her, Evie was on board, and if Carlos had some books that might have a layout of the Isle then we could start early tomorrow. Things were definitely progressing as planned. It's hard not to get a bit excited.

They made it to Hell Hall to the surprise of Carlos.

"Do you have any books on the Isle?" Mal asked not beating around the bush.

"The Isle?" He walked over, and looked through the books pulling out the smallest books he had. "There isn't a lot of information." He handed Mal the book and started to look through the other books, but she was sure this was the only one he had. "Why do you want to know about the Isle?"

Mal was rifling through the book trying to find any kind of picture and found some in the back, "We are going to find my Mom's scepter." Mal said.

"Okay?"

"Something broke the barrier enough for Mom's scepter to come to life. She's sure now that it's in the Isle. So we're going to go find it."

"We are?" Carlos asked.

"Yes, tomorrow. As soon as we can nab ourselves a boat, some food for the few days we'll be searching for the scepter, and weapons." As Mal listed this Jay nodded.

"I've got weapons handled."

"Good."

"I can get some food." Evie said, and Mal nodded.

"We should all try to get some food and water. Better safe than sorry." Good, that sounded like a good plan. "So we meet tomorrow at dawn at the main square and try to find ourselves a boat, alright?" They all nodded. "Good."

*******This chapter is a bit wonky but eh. Enjoy.**


	7. 7) Forbidden Fortress

**This is basically the way I wrote the original chapter. I just changed first pov to third. I want to get to the good stuff and didnt want to waste time with boring chapters.*******

They met up in the main square at dawn, some of the other early birds eyed them warily in clase they started to wreck chaos, but unfortunately they were not going to be able to have fun today.

"So, are we ready?" Mal asked them all, and they nodded.

"We have food, water, weapons, some rope, if we need it." Jay listed off, and Mal nodded pleased.

"Good, let's steal a boat."

It wasn't that hard to get a boat until they got caught, but they mostly had to give some of the goblins some fruit, some of them almost got into a fight with Jay, but Mal quickly handled that situation. Things were going so easily that when they were on the boat and Jay was heading in the direction of the second Isle Mal was jittery with nerves.

It couldn't be possible that it was going so easy, right? Something had to go wrong. She swallowed nervously as she ruffled through her pack and got out the small book she took from Carlos yesterday. To keep herself busy she edged closer to Jay and Carlos, who were both fumbling with the boat and said, "I think we're heading in the right direction." They both turned to Mal, Evie was already watching her, but Jay looked away to make sure they didn't hit any rocks or anything. "Here." Mal handed the book to Carlos and he studied over it, quietly telling Jay where to go, but from what she heard

they were going in the right direction.

"This is exciting." Evie told Mal with a hesitant smile. She smiled too much.

"It should be, Princess. But it's also dangerous, so we have to be careful." She nodded, listening to Mal's every word, and fine Mal liked that. "You do know how to fight, right?"

"Yes, Jay has been helping me."

"Good. We don't know what will in the place, so be alert, alright?"

She nodded and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. Mal was glad. She needed to get herself together for what they were about to do.

She hadn't been able to sleep from all the excitement, but now that they were almost there according to Carlos, she was feeling the effects of her lack of sleep. She'd been prepping herself up for what they were about to do, and kept reminding herself of the dream she had yesterday. The chances of it becoming reality were close, so close and she was not about to stop now.

Almost half an hour later they began to see the Isle ahead of them, and yes, it was smaller than the one they lived in, but up close it looked big. No need to freak out, they might take a day longer than planned, but it was manageable.

When they all pulled the boat close to land, near some rocks, Jay suggested they hide it with some of the weeds and plants around them, and so that took up most of the morning. By the time they were done they were all exhausted, but they still decided to make way and start heading into what appeared to be some mountains from afar, but closer Mal could see that it was her Mother's Forbidden Fortress.

"We should take a break." Mal said, when both Carlos started trailing behind Jay and Mal, to keep Evie company.

"Great." Jay said, when they found a clearing and set things down, and they all ate silently, looking around, alert for any danger. Mal mostly ignored Evie and Carlos, who were a few feet away, murmuring to themselves.

Mal made sure to keep a limit to what she ate, mostly stale bread and some fruit. It was harder to not drink all her water in one go, but she knew that she needed to make it last.

About 20 minutes later, after they were much more relaxed they headed out again and it wasn't long before they caught sight of the Forbidden Fortress. It would a trek up there, but they were here.

"You guys ready?" Mal asked, and they all murmured their confirmation. "Good, let's go."

*******My phone is almost out of battery so this will be the last chapter I update today. Maybe later Ill upload the others. **


	8. 8) Fears

This one is a bit scary? You guys judge.

Mal led everyone up the long trek to the Forbidden Fortress, and she had imagined that once she got closer it would maybe look less daunting, but nope, with it looming so high above her it seemed like a sentient being ready to devour her and her gang whole. She quickly focused on the fact that Evie seemed to be a part of her gang, instead of the fear she felt coiling inside of her, instinctively telling her to leave, to survive.

She had expected a bit more of a battle the closer she got, but so far everything seemed okay. Not that it raised her spirits any, or made her feel any less scared.

"Okay, we made it." To keep up with her calm facade she smirked when she turned to the others. "I think this would be a great place for a party next time."

"Here?" Carlos asked, and like always he was the least proficient in hiding his fear. Had always been like that since they were kids.

Whoa, where did that come from? She thought. Mal never thought about the first time she ever met Carlos. She thought of it as her weakest moment yet, and that only made her angry. So why why was she thinking about it now?

"Yeah, it has a nice ambiance, don't you think?" She was messing with him, but Carlos, when he didn't snap out of stress or whatever melt down he was having, he was easily flustered, and he flustered right now.

"Let's talk parties later." She said and moved towards the door, only for some grey mist to appear and form words.

Any who seek entrance

Must pass four tests

To enter this domain.

"Four Tests?" Evie asked, looking closer at the gray-smoke formed letters.

"Shouldn't be a problem." Mal said dryly, reading the message again for the third time.

"It shouldn't?" Jay asked, unconvinced.

"We're all smart. What test can't we pass?"

"It seems very cryptic to me." Carlos mentioned, but Mal wasn't paying attention. If she had she would have realized that maybe something was off about the words, but she didn't much care right now. She just wanted her Mom's scepter and get out of here.

"Okay, we're ready." She announced and the gray-smoke letter vaporized only for the door to swing open on its own accord. "See? It's perfect." She said, going back to her old talk about having a party here, but now she was feeling a bit rattled.

Either way, she stepped forward and the others followed suit. The inside of the Fortress was as dark and imposing as the outside, but there was a faint sheen of green.

They had been walking for a few minutes, Mal being the one leading them, and when she had mentioned she had felt the scepter's energy calling to her, well the others nervously chuckled and Mal didn't mention it again. Not for their sake, not even for hers, she just chose to remain quiet. It was just better.

They had gone up two levels of stairs and the deeper they went the more trapped they felt, Mal kept telling herself she wasn't scared, that she couldn't notice the others huddling closer behind her, but the nervous energy was getting to her. It was almost more overwhelming then the scepter's call, which thrummed deep inside her blood, calling for her, knowing her. And for the first time she actually felt like maybe she was Maleficent's daughter after all. Why else would her scepter recognize her?

Mal shook those thoughts away. This was not the time to recognize Maleficent resenting Mal's existence. She had a job to do.

"Here." She said, leading them to a room with big windows that allowed in the grey light that signaled it was still day.

"Why here?" Evie asked, taking a deep breath as they all entered the room. The other side held another door and they were all heading towards it, but at that moment they all froze and the first test began.

They were brought into this illusion that trapped them into their own head, and all of them had were trapped with their worst fears.

Jay was trying to sleep when all manner of things, he couldn't grasp what they were, they were all just falling on top of him and he couldn't get up to move. He tried to push the things away, but they kept falling over him and as he tried to scream he found he couldn't breath. He was going to die. The last thing he saw was someone walking over to him, he couldn't tell who it was until he heard his Father's voice, "There's only one person who needs to look out for you, and look at you, you can't even look out for yourself."

He continued to scream, but no one was coming to help him and he knew it.

Back to the real world, it looked like Jay was choking on his own breath, but neither he nor the others made any movement to help him.

Carlos knew where he was. He was trapped in his Mother's fur coat closet. He backed up into the door, grabbing at the door knob, twisting it with all his might, but the longer that it stayed closed the less it was able to open. He began to panic, not able to help it, but then he heard something loud and horrible. First it was the snap of one of the bear traps, his insides went cold. When he was younger he had gotten locked in here and had not been able to get out. He had gotten close to one of the bear traps and it had just missed him, but a part of his leg had been grazed by the jaws as it snapped closed and hours later his Mother had found him huddled close to the locked door, and only told him that he was grounded for not finishing his chores.

But now, he was stuck and had not even touched the bear traps and they were all snapping closer, but that wasn't the worst part. He could see something, hunched over in its four legs- no paws, and his felt his heart stop. He started shaking as the figure kept walking steadily closer, causing all the bear traps to go off around it, but it didn't stop, it didn't seem to even notice what was happening around it.

It would have been majestic if Carlos wasn't deadly scared the moment he realized what it was. It was a dog, white frothing at the mouth, razor sharp teeth obvious as it growled deep inside as it skulked closer to Carlos.

"Nooo!" He had a moment to shout right before the dog crouched low before pouncing into Carlos and growling, saliva falling on his face before it lunged for his jugular-

In the real world, Carlos whole body jerked before he stilled. He was still lost in his fear.

Mal was a different story. She was back in the Isle of the Lost, and as she looked around the empty streets she didn't think to wonder where Carlos, Jay and Evie were.

Growing panicked she ran to her house hoping to find her Mom. But all she found was the T.V. on and she was going to shut it off, because the last thing she wanted was to hear anymore news about Auradon when everyone was missing-

But then she stopped when she saw her Mother in the T.V. addressing the crowd that Mal couldn't see, because the camera was focused solely on her Mom.

"Today is the beginning of a new era." She laughed and off screen everyone joined her. Something told Mal, none of the Auradon residents were part of the laughing crowd. "But first things first, I am sad to say that my daughter Mal has been left behind the Isle." Mal gasped, tears brimming in her eyes, only for her heart to completely break when her Mom laughed cruelly. "No, I'm not really sad. The price for our freedom was Mal, and I'm going to be the first one to say that it wasn't a hard sacrifice to make." She smiled and Mal dropped to her knees, her mind racing a mile a minute, not able to believe what she just saw, what she just heard.

But she knew it was true. She was alone here. Her Mom, everyone, they had left her behind. She was never going to get off this Isle.

There was no real change with the real Mal, but a lone tear fell down her left cheek, before everything remained as still as possible.

Evie was in her own version of her worst fear. She was stuck in the Castle Across The Way, hearing all the loud ruckus coming from the other residents of the Isle. She kind of wished she could go over there. And as she looked at her vanity, and looked at the reflection of her room through the mirror, there wasn't a single thing amiss, but then something tickled in the back of her mind. A memory. Of Mal.

But she wasn't six years old like she remembered her to be, she was older.

She met her own eyes in the mirror only to scream horrified. Her face was disfigured, full of cuts that throbbed like fire.

She jumped to her feet, causing her chair to fall and she breathed heavily as her arms also cracked open quickly.

"No!" She gasped in pain, crying, but then she met the eyes of her mirror self and saw that she wasn't looking back at her horrified, with tears in her eyes, it was herself, but smirking.

"This is all you will ever be." Her mirror self taunted, and Evie breathed out, anger quickly replacing and numbing down the pain that followed her bodies's harm.

"This isn't real." She gasped out. Looking around and as she looked around her room flashed from being her room to being in that dark room in the Forbidden Fortress. When she was permanently back in her room, she glared at her reflection, who also glared back, and she almost fell to her knees as the pain started in deeper. "This is a test, isn't it?"

She didn't wait for her reflection to answer her she just brought her hand back and with all her might, the strongest she could move as all her muscles started to feel overwhelmed with pain and weakness, she swung at the mirror and it broke into shards, falling down around her like crystals.

She screamed one last time, before she opened her eyes, breathing raggedly as she looked around.

She was back in the real world. She shuddered, the fear she had felt, all that pain still a ghost that wouldn't let go, and stood up, reaching up to the others who were stock still and not moving. She didn't have to guess long to know that they were stuck in their own fears.

"Wake up! It's not real!" She shook them all individually until they all started to stir a bit, once she got to Mal, she gasped, grabbing her arms and looking around wildly. "It's not real. It was--it was the first test." She said, noticing, but not mentioning the way Mal's eyes seemed to fill with tears before she blinked harshly and looked at Carlos and Jay, who were all looking very dazed and confused, a dash of fear in all their faces.

"Did we pass?" Mal asked, letting go of Evie and Evie let go as well.

"I think so." Evie said, her voice hardly shaking and she took a deep breath.

"Good." Mal turned to Carlos and Jay. "You guys okay?"

They both nodded, unable to talk.

"You guys ready to keep going?...or you can turn back now if you want." She said and Evie was surprised that she would tell them this.

"We're with you." Jay said, and there was a roughness to his voice, but it made Evie believe him thoroughly.

Mal nodded and then all the focus was on Carlos. "Three more tests. How hard can they be?" He tried to joke, but his voice broke a bit. Mal didn't voice it, she just turned to Evie.

"Evie?"

"Lead the way." Evie said, much more self assured after she was able to beat the first test. It actually gave her courage to keep going.

Mal patted her hand, breathing in quietly before leading the way to the door they had been trying to reach before. The others followed quietly, but ready for any surprise that would come their way.

**I decided that one more chapter before going to bed. this was the original one i wrote and i think its perfect.**


	9. 9) Guards

**This is a new chapter. I worked on this ages ago, but since its in 3rd pov I thought itd be okay to upload. The future after my next one wont be as quickly put up but know that im working on the chapters on my free, battery-filled time, okay? Cool.**

*****

They were all still feeling very rattled, but now they were more on edge. If the first test was intense the way it was, and Evie seemed to be the only one who was able to break through the magic's effects, they were all a little more concerned than before.

"Be careful." Mal said, even though she didn't need to, but it made her feel better putting on a strong bravado instead of staying afraid in her own thoughts.

They were going deeper into the Fortress, Mal much more careful than just following after the scepter's call this time.

But when they got down this immense hall way with a lot of old, dirty, dusty suits of armors. Mal made the mistake of paying them no mind, thinking they were just old suits of armor, nothing more. But when they sprang to life, all of them, and they were rows of them up and down the hall way, all four Villain Kids scrambled together looking around as they were surrounded and trapped.

They all got their swords and knife's. There weren't a lot of options when it came to weaponry in the Isle, the weapons old and rusty, but they would have to do.

"Any ideas?" Jay asked, already itching to initiate the first blow. Something about being surrounded like this, specially after the dream he just had, it didn't sit well with him. But he knew that going in fighting against all these suits of armor that just came to life was not the way. They would be overwhelmed soon enough, and most likely dead if they didn't find a way to combat their way out of this.

Before Mal or any of the others could give an inkling of an idea, the old, creaky suits of armors lunged forward attacking, and the fight began.

In their end, the villain kids mostly used defense tactics, to protect themselves, to block any attack. It was sort of working, but soon enough the number of suits of armor doubled and they were overwhelmed not before long.

"What are we supposed to do?" Carlos asked, backing up against the others, their presence only doing so much to calm him down.

"Fight our way out?" Mal said, but even she knew how stupid that would be. They were surrounded, with no way to escape.

They continued to fight, here and there blocking and lunging attacks of their own, but they were hitting nothing, since the suits of armor seemed to have no weakness, and right when it seemed that the end was nigh, some of the suits of armor stepped aside and some skeletons, old and gray sauntered forward, their steps reverberating over the hall in horrible clack-clack-clack.

But Mal saw this as a better opportunity to fight, because the skeletons were made of bones, and bones could break.

It was almost like they had hit a lucky break.

The moment they knocked down a skeleton, one of the suits of armor would fall to the ground. Mal chanced a glance with Carlos and Evie who were closest to her and she thought that they would probably make it out of here alive, after all.

But while they three were feeling a little more hopeful, Jay looked at the suits of armor and the skeletons, and watched as the suits of armor fell when one skeleton was dropped. At this point there was a chance that they would be able to get out of there alive, but-

But there then some of the old suits of armor would rise again, and Jay could see a hint of the grey bone inside.

"They're coming back!" He announced, always hating to be the bearer of bad news, but there was no other way around it, the suits of armor were now rising with the skeletons inside. And how where they were going fight them off exactly? They were covered all the way to protect themselves against any danger.

Maybe it was the impossibility of the winning, or always knowing when the odds were stacked against him, and boy where they stacked against them right now, but Jay had a sense of clarity: They had to stop fighting.

Assessing the situation, and remembering the cryptic message at the beginning. The four tests had to be past, but what if the last one was about getting out of the illusion to move forward, but this one, this one was about not fighting their way out, because they wanted to go forward, deeper into the Fortress.

All of this was realized and analyzed in his head as he struck at one of the skeletons in a suit of armor, effectively breaking off the arm and part of the chain mail.

"Stop!" He shouted, and the others half stopped their attacks, but they were still fighting. "We have to stop!"

"What! Jay, we're not going to stop!" Mal said as she swung at the skeleton closest to her. When Jay blocked an attack and pushed back, swinging his sword on the nearest skeleton, Mal said, "You're not stopping either. We can't quit! We have to keep going!"

"Exactly! There is no way of getting out of this. We'll tire ourselves out. But this test" Jay quickly blocked an attack grunting at the force of the blow. Where they getting stronger? "it's not about fighting our way out, it's about accepting that we're not going to win." The others were looking at him like he had lost his mind. "Trust me." He told them, and he saw them all stop, backing up closer to each other, leaving themselves completely defenseless.

And for a second it seemed that maybe Jay was right.

But then some of the skeletons raised some of their spears, pointing them directly at each of them, and one of them, stepped forward. Jay felt Evie squirming in fear as it made its way toward them both, but in the end, the skeleton reached out a hand, reaching for Jay's throat, its fingers squeezing until all he could feel was the silky smoothness of the bone and he felt sick, there was a terrible smell now that the skeleton was close, but he couldn't breath in properly for a moment after the skeleton squeezed tighter.

"Jay!" All three of his friends shouted out, trying to reach out to him, but the spears were pushed a bit more harshly into their stomachs causing all three to stop. And as he struggled to breath, vision going a bit hazy, he was glad that at least here, in the real world, he had his friends with him.

"Fight." A whisper of a voice came from the skeleton, and Jay struggled to form words, but he grunted out his defiance.

"No." He choked out.

And right when he thought he would pass out, the fingers disappeared from around his neck and he greedily gasped in breaths of air as he dropped to his knees.

"Breath, Jay!" Evie exclaimed worried.

"You're okay." That was Carlos.

"How did you know?" Mal asked, and when Jay opened his eyes she was kneeling directly in front him, looking like she was still ready for a fight, and Jay understood that look. He was always on edge, ready for a fight, ready to run when he stole something for this Father's shop. Mal was practically vibrating with restless energy.

"It wants us to stay here." Jay groused out after a cough.

"What does?" Evie asked.

"The Fortress."

"I think...whether we pass the test or not...it wants to keep us here forever."

Evie and Carlos looked at him with open fear in their eyes, and when all three faced Mal, she swallowed visibly before sighing.

"You should all go then."

"What?" Jay asked, the only one able to at this point, since Carlos and Evie were too shocked.

"This place will not keep me here." From her tone of voice and the way she shifted her eyes away from them all, Jay knew she was lying.

"No, we came together. We're leaving together. And since you're not leaving without the scepter, well, neither are we." He declared, and maybe he should have given Evie and Carlos a chance to decide for themselves whether they wanted to go or keep going, but when he looked at both of them, they both nodded.

"We're not leaving." Evie said, and Jay was sure that as much as Mal was hiding it, she was probably very surprised that Evie out of them all would also decide to stay.

"We're with you, Mal." Carlos nodded and Mal looked at them. And for a second it looked like she was going to tell them to stop being ridiculous, but then a ghost of a smile appeared in her lips and she glanced at them all.

"Thank you."

Jay stood up, raising a hand to his throat and expecting it to hurt, but when no pain or any feel of any harm came to him, he sighed. "Let's go. Two down, two to go."

They nodded and maybe Jay got lucky, maybe if they kept going they would be stuck there forever. But at least they would be stuck together, and Jay wouldn't have it any other way at that point.

*******I'm getting my glasses in 7 to 10 business days so you all will get chapters that ive already written. Just changed 3rd to 1st pov. I have enough chapters finished i just need to polish them up a bit.**


	10. 10) Happiness

**This is my last finished chapter. I will go back to slow updates because 1) Im blind at the moment and 2) my phone sort of sucks. Enjoy. I like this chapter.*******

Mal knew that they were getting closer. She could see how tired her friends were.

"We should take a small break." She said, looking around to make sure they were still semi safe.

"Right here?"

"We're fine. I think if anything attacks us, we will be ready." Mal said, because yes she knew that they should be careful, but she could see how tired they all were. And she herself was feeling the strain of their last illusion.

Was it something her Mom tried to make up? Or was the Fortress truly sentient and playing tricks on them.

Jay and the others sat down and she didn't meet Carlos's eyes. She was embarrassed that when Jay was being choked by that skeleton being, she had reached out and grabbed on to the closest person to her, which happened to be Carlos. He had met her eyes when that had happened, and Mal had quickly let go, focusing back on Jay.

Jay was safe, he was right, and she was going to ignore whatever had happened back there.

"You think the Fortress is trying to keep us in here?" She asked, going back to what he had said earlier.

"It's a theory." Jay answered.

And yeah, Mal could see how it was possible. And she did think it was true. Now that they were deeper in the Fortress, and had passed two tests she felt the call of the scepter much stronger than before.

Part of her knew that the call was what was making her think that they were safe enough to stop for a break.

"Okay, so we leave as soon as we get the scepter." Mal finished, no nonsense as always.

The others nodded. Jay kept rubbing at his throat, but from Mal could see there was no trace of the skeletons fingers there. She still shuddered at the idea of how Jay must feel at that moment.

They ate in silence, drinking quietly, and only when they had all put their things away, and turned to Mal for guidance, Mal nodded quietly and led them to further in the hallways and through various rooms. She was partly glad to be near some windows, but based on the fading light it was getting dark soon and the last thing she wanted was to be in this place. Her jokes about having a party here that morning were gone now. She just wanted to get this done, earn some of her Mom's respect, and stay in the Isle of the Lost and not come back to this place.

They had reached a set of stairs and everything seemed okay, until they reached the next level and then the next test started, but unlike the other two, one dealing with their fears and fighting through that, and the other was fighting an illusion wide awake, this one appeared...good.

For Jay, he was in a grand palace, with all the riches in the world. He stared at the novelty of seeing all these wonderful, beautiful things around him, but when he stepped forward his Dad walked in from the other room, and Jay prepared himself to get scolded. To have this dream turn into a nightmare, but no sooner had he thought that, that his Dad opened his arms wide and smiled at him.

"Jay, my son, you were not here for breakfast and lunch, don't tell me you were out with the prisoners again?" His Dad tutted, placing a hand around Jay's shoulders, leading him to a balcony and Jay stared around, awed by everything. There was so much stretch of land, he could smell something delicious cooking down by the main square where a lot of people were walking calmly, peacefully.

The sun...it was right above him, Jay was still in the shade and he wanted to get closer to feel the heat, to feel that this was real, because it felt real and it was wonderful.

His older worries disappeared when his Dad said, "I will have a meeting with the other villains, and you can play with your little friends when they get here. Stay busy, I don't want a repeat of what happened last time, do you understand?"

Jay didn't quite understand, but he nodded anyway.

"I do."

"Good." His Dad murmured, but Jay wasn't paying attention, he was walking forward until he was about to step outside in the sun.

Back in the Fortress, Jay smiled slowly, lost in his happy illusion.

Evie's illusion of happiness consisted of sitting in this long dining table, Carlos, Jay and Mal all sitting around her, and on the other side of the long dining table was her Mother, eating with the others. They paid them no mind, but Evie didn't feel fear of doing something wrong and getting scolded or worse like usual.

Instead, she turned to her friends, noticing all the food around her. It looked delicious.

"Stop ogling and eat already." Mal told her, placing a cake with some kind of pink frosting. It looked perfect.

"Don't mind if I do." Evie said with a growing grin, and was about to take a bite of the cake when Jay asked:

"Do you have everything ready for your ball?"

Evie almost dropped her fork, before she started to think about it, and nodded slowly with a smile. "Yes, I've been working on it all month."

The real Evie smiled and just like that she was also lost in her own illusion.

Going into Mal's illusion, she was in that clearing, no trees around them. It was just her and her Mom, who was standing in front of her grinning.

"Come with me, my little dragon." She said offering her hand, and Mal reached with her own hand, a small smile forming in her lips.

And so Mal was also lost in her own illusion of happiness.

The last one to go was Carlos. With how easy they others were to lose themselves in their happiness, one would think he'd be the easiest to lose himself in his happiness as well, but the moment that he opened his eyes, and he was in Hell House, but it was clean, there was no mess, and his Mom was walking downstairs with one of her fur coats-no, this one was different. It looked shiny, new.

And even with Cruella's usual grin, she stepped down the stairs and laughed, "Carlos, what did I tell you?"

Carlos knew that it wasn't anything bad, but he's had enough experience messing up that he knew something bad was coming.

"I'm sorry. I'll get started on the chores."

"Chores?" Cruella got to the last step and looked at him with a frown, "What chores?"

Carlos looked around, this place was clean, there were no chores needed. Was this a joke? Was he dreaming? "Uh, I'll get lunch ready." He said, heading towards the kitchen to get started on lunch. The more he made himself useful the better. Everything inside him was buzzing with the same anxious feeling he always got whenever he was around his Mom. That he would mess up, and then he'd be locked in the closet without any food for days.

"Carlos, what is the matter with you?" She asked, cocking her head to the side. And Carlos knew that he had messed up somehow. He swallowed nervously as he turned to face her, waiting for her to start screaming. "Your friends will be here soon." She said, before walking away and there was a peculiar look to her face as she looked at him while walking away.

The nervous feeling Carlos got intensified when he was alone.

What was going on? Why was his Mom acting so weird?

He was about to look around for a chore to complete, anything to keep his Mom in whatever good mood she was currently in. But then the door bell rang, and he rushed over only to see Mal there.

He blinked in surprise.

"Mal." He said, opening the door more. His Mom did say that his friends were coming over. Not that they've ever really said that out loud, and to have his Mom be the one to call them that? And Mal, his friend? He'd never be so lucky.

"Carlos." She said, walking inside and looking around his Mom's house. "Place looks good."

"Yeah..." He licked his lips. Did he clean and forget? He'd remember right? "Looks good."

She turned to him with a grin, and Carlos frowned at her. "The others will be here soon." She said and sat down in one of the chairs nearest to her.

Carlos nodded, stepping closer slightly, and watched Mal quietly. He never knew what to say around her sometimes. She was always intimidating, and he can only name one time he ever stood up to her, and well, he honestly thought that she would have his head or something, but she hadn't, which was weird.

Mal was always surprising him. He expected her to do something, but she did the opposite.

"You're kinda staring at me." Mal said, chuckling and looking away awkwardly, but the moment that Carlos looked away, he saw her turning back to him, looking more relaxed than she had a second ago. "I'd say take a picture, it'll last longer, but you already took that one picture, remember? And I only agreed to one picture."

"I have a picture of you?" Carlos asked, because that didn't seem real.

Mal blinked up at him. "Yes. You wanted to take a picture the first day we started dating remember?"

Carlos tensed up, breathing in sharply. "What? Dating-"

Mal stood up, looking at him worried. "Carlos, you're acting weird. What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with- What's wrong with you?!" Mal blinked in surprise, reeling back slightly, "We're not dating! We've never-"

"And why not?" Mal asked, and there was shift not only in her, but in the air around them. Carlos looked around growing more tense, the nervous feeling in his stomach doubled like he had wasps in there. He felt sick. "Because you think I would never like you?" She started walking towards him. Carlos took steps back. "Or because you'd never admit, even to yourself, that you have a tiny crush on me, and that this," She opened her arms wide, looking around before meeting his gaze again, "this is what you want?"

"What?" Carlos frowned, clenching his hands into fists and taking longer steps away from whatever or whoever this was, because it wasn't Mal. "What is this? Who are you?"

Fake Mal looked at him curiously. "Fascinating."

"What is?"

"You are so full of fear that no matter what illusion of happiness I create you will never enjoy it."

Carlos felt himself shake, but tried to not let it show as he looked around. "This is an illusion?"

"Yes." Fake Mal stepped closer. "I don't see the point in keeping up the ruse. You didn't even have to pass the test. You're damaged."

"So you're just," Carlos swallowed, as memories of reality came back and he remembered that he was in the Isle of the Doomed, trying to get Maleficent's scepter, and he felt woozy with every second that passed knowing what was real and what wasn't, "going to let me go?"

"Yes. I don't know if its because I respect you or pity you." Fake Mal said quietly, and Carlos didn't get to ask what she meant, because in a moment's blink he was back in the real world. His friends trapped in their own illusions of happiness, smiles in their faces.

Carlos swallowed the lump in his throat, blinked away the burning behind his eyes at knowing that he couldn't even find an iota of happiness in that place, before bottling that down and heading towards Mal, before stopping and heading to Evie instead.

It was weak, but he didn't want to face what Fake Mal had told him, what he had a second ago. He still felt shaky and like he could throw up at any moment.

"Hey, Evie."

Evie stirred, blinking up at him, her smile slowly falling as she looked around. "What- the test?" She asked in a whisper, and Carlos's heart clenched at the disappointment in her voice.

"Yes, sorry. I'll wake up Jay, you wake up Mal." He didn't even wait to see if Evie nodded, he just headed to Jay and shook him awake.

It unsettled him the way that Jay, too, lost his smile the more he looked around, and yes, he didn't get a taste of that happiness, and he didn't have time to process, but he didn't feel all that bad now, he only felt bad for his friends.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Jay croaked out, clearing his throat before a facsimile of a grin appeared in his. "Never better." And then he turned away and faced the two girls.

Carlos took a moment to swallow down his worry and turned to the others as well. When he finally looked at Mal, she was taking a deep breath, a faraway look in her eyes. But then she swallowed thickly, cleared her throat and squared her shoulders.

"One more test." She announced, and Jay and Evie nodded. Carlos nodded last, watching everyone closely. They weren't doing as well as they pretending to be doing. "Let's finish this." She concluded, an edge to her voice, and stiffly turned away. Jay and Evie soon followed.

Carlos swallowed one more time before he made himself to follow after the others. Whatever they had seen, it had affected them, and he didn't know there was anything he could do to help them.

He felt utterly useless.

*****

**I should have free time this weekend, not to mention my feet hurt so I'll definitely try to do updates soon. For now be patient with this turtle writer. (No offense to turtles. It sounded like an insult to compare myself to a turtle but no hate to turtles. :) )**


	11. 11) Over

**I'll take a few days to update but don't worry I'll update as soon as I can. Just bear with me. I'm glassless at the moment.**

Mal didn't think she could handle any more of these tests. So far she hadn't been able to fight off the illusions. Fear had gripped her heart. She was sure that this last test she would be able to finish. It was a matter of pride at that point.

They made their way up to the tallest point of the Forbidden Fortress. Mal was sure that they would be arriving soon. She felt the pull to the scepter much stronger up here than the floors below.

Mal was right. It didn't take them long to reach the throne room and it was there that they found the scepter glowing green. Almost like it was waiting for them.

Like it was waiting for Mal.

Mal was just about to make her way to the scepter when someone walked past her she gasped when she saw that it was her Mom.

"Well, done, baby." Maleficent said.

"You-you could come here anytime you wanted?" Mal asked. "Why did you send us here then?"

Maleficent narrowered her eyes at Mal. "I sent you not them." She sneered at the others before continuing. "Now, you should thank me."

"Thank you?" Mal asked.

"Yes, you're lucky you didn't get stuck here. Once completed the tests would've ensured you be trapped here forever."

Mal paled. Behind her the others gasped as well at this surprising.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mal asked.

"Because it wasn't important." Maleficent grinned as she grabbed her scepter. "My scepter. I missed you." She said softly.

Mal felt her stomach twist uncomfortably at this display. She swallowed thickly.

"Go home." Maleficent said before snapping her fingers.

In the blink of an eye Mal and the others found themselves back at the shore, where the boat was waiting for them.

Mal felt choked up and made sure to keep her back to the others to prevent them from seeing her tears that had welled in her eyes.

She blinked them away, breathing in as quietly as possible. She wasn't the leader for nothing. She had to keep it together.

"I didn't know we would've stayed there forever." Mal said.

"We're out. That's all that matters," Evie said to Mal's surprise.

It had been years and things were still not okay between them, but the fact that the girl was trying to talk with her, make things work with her, it made all the difference in the world.

Mal nodded, not able to think of any words, but then she didn't need to say anything.

"Let's go back." Jay directed, already leading the way to their still covered boat. Mal felt a foreign sentiment then. Growing up in the Isle meant that you didn't get to have normal sentiments about anything or anyone, but the fact was, Mal did feel something now, something new towards Jay and Evie. She looked over at Carlos who was quietly helping Jay and Evie.

He'd been quiet for a while now which wasn't out of character, but something about his behavior was off and it was confusing Mal to no end. She decided to let it go and help the others because she was ready to go home.

Evie was willing to work things out and let go of the past and so if she could try to relearn and let go of the past then so could Mal.

They survived this ordeal and now all they had was the future. And maybe the future wasn't full of possibilities but at least they weren't going to be stuck in that creepy Fortress.

Her heart sank momentarily at the fact that her Mother would risk letting her get stuck in the place but Mal decided to let it go, there was no reason to keep holding on to this pain.

Not anymore anyway.

**I finally got my glasses! I make no promises as to updates, but I will definitely try to update as much as possible from now on. First sleep is important because lack of sleep was the reason I ended up going to the hospital, but for now let me just rest and I'll try to have a clear date of update. If I do twice a week I can work on the chapters longer and give you guys better content. Maybe I'll do that. Update on Tuesdays and Fridays, and work on chapters in between. This was just an extra chapter because it's been a while since I last updated, but here is the new chapter. If I can I'll try for an update tomorrow but if not look forward to Tuesday. And yes, I'll make the chapter long and exciting. **


	12. 12) A New Beginning

**I'm here with a new chapter. It'll be half-interesting, half-not because we're getting to the part where they're going to Auradon. Yep. We're finally about to see Ben and Audrey and the rest of the Auradon Kids and guys, this is not going to be like the movie at all. I'm changing a lot of stuff about the movie and the characters, but enough of that for now. Just don't be worried about the lack of drama, the conflict will come in due time, cause conflict is a part of any story. :) Enjoy.**

The seats were soft and it smelled nice in the limousine. That was the first thing Mal noticed. It irritated her that without even much thought the good guys were already proving that they were selfish and didn't care about them at all, because of course, they wouldn't.

Mal was still feeling on edge and didn't fully like the fact that her Mom made her go to Auradon. That place would be full of idiots; of that Mal was sure of.

In the past five or so minutes Mal went from trying to have the courage to do as her Mom asked of her. While she had her 'plotting face', Evie making sure to comment on it, Evie, Jay, and Carlos were gleefully eating every possible snack that was before them.

That also made Mal a little bit uncomfortable because they left food in sight of them. Was it a test? Did they want to have power and control over them?

"M, you should eat something." Evie voiced out as she herself nibbled on some candy.

"Later. I'm plotting."

Evie rolled her eyes. "Enough. Eat." She pointed to the array of candies and drinks available. Jay and Carlos stopping their antics for a second to watch what Mal would do. Her mood had not escaped their notice.

Irritated by the attention, Mal rolled her eyes and grabbed a purple ball. It had a hard surface but once bitten into it was chewy. Whoa, it was the best gum she'd ever tasted. It tasted fresh and sweet and Mal hated that she liked the taste of it.

It would last a while so at least Evie couldn't tell her anything about that anymore.

The annoying part was that Mal was actually hungry. She hadn't been able to eat earlier and the taste and chewing were calming her down.

"Happy now?" Mal drawled out and Evie nodded with a grin. For the first time not wiping it clear off her face a second later. Not being around her Mom was good for her, Mal noticed.

To deal with her lessening boredom, Mal leaned back grabbing a little black control pressing the buttons to see what would happen but it wasn't turning anything on. What a crock. Even in Auradon nothing worked.

That is until Evie happened to glance behind Mal, toward the little window that had rolled down behind Mal and saw the view outside. She sat forward with a gasp, eyes going slightly wide.

"They're going to kill us!" Evie shouted.

This quickly got the attention of the others and they all dropped what they were holding, looked out the front of the window to see the approaching water they were heading into and huddled close, screaming.

Some cursed, some silently cried; Mal swore that if she died she would come back as a ghost and get revenge on the people of Auradon for playing this cruel joke on her and her friends.

Of course, after about half a minute of yelling and clutching at each other, they realized that nothing was happening and they slowly pulled back, each of them assessing the situation.

"What's happening?" Mal voiced out. Voice, thankfully, without a tremble.

"It's magic." Evie pointed out with a relieved gasp.

"I thought we were really going to die," Carlos spoke up and Mal glanced over and saw that he was looking at her.

Mal could've used that moment to feel up and sat that she thought that too, but that would be weak of her so she changed her mind.

Not that Carlos was weak, he was something alright, but Mal couldn't figure him out which pissed her off to no end.

"I didn't." Jay scoffed, with feigned bravado.

"Yeah? And you weren't screaming a second ago either." Mal pointed out dryly and chewing on her gum.

"I was scared, but I didn't think we would die," Jay said. Mal chuckled.

"Fine."

The rest of the ride went in a similar fashion. The boys stuffed their faces, Evie tried trying one thing of everything, before she started stuffing some of the goodies in her purse, and that's when the boys got the idea to take some of their things with them, stuffing them in their bags, but since there seemed to be quite a lot of things, and big too, they quickly ran out of space.

They were in the middle of trying to get everything while fighting for some kind of scarf that really didn't seem to be worth anything, so it made even less sense than Jay would be fighting Carlos for it.

"We're almost there!" Evie announced, looking out the windows.

The ride had not been more than maybe 30 or so minutes. The boys calmed down but continued arguing over the scarf; Evie checked her make-up, running her fingers through her hair to make it pretty; Mal was fighting with herself again to not be weak. She didn't want to be weak.

* Flashback *

"You won't fail me, right, baby?" Maleficent had asked Mal as the others walked outside, heading for the limo.

"No," Mal answered, resisting the urge to swallow visibly, "I won't fail you.

"A lot depends on you getting me-us-the wand. You better not mess it up."

* Flashback *

It wasn't even necessary to say that it didn't make Mal feel any better, but her mother was trusting her with this big responsibility and Mal didn't and wouldn't let her down. She already knew they could steal the limo and apparently, there was the magic that could help them on the drive over. That part of the plan was done, but to get the keys to the limo.

First thing was getting the wand, as soon as they got the wand Mal could figure out the limo situation.

Of course, that had to wait, because the car slowed to a stop, and Evie out before the others could get their bearings.

The sun was bright and standing directly under it warmed them in ways the foggy magical barrier never had. The air was fresh, smelling sweet from some of the flowers bushes nearby.

Mal was in awe, Evie was twirling, but they both snapped out of their enjoyment and came back to reality by Jay and Carlos who were making fools of themselves now that they had an audience and were still fighting over that stupid scarf.

The situation was made worse when Jay managed to get out and Carlos, not wanting to let go of his precious prize, let himself get dragged out, but all Carlos achieved was falling on all fours on the ground. The boy was still relentless because he did not let go and actually glared up at Jay in defiance.

"Guys, stop!" Mal hissed, hating that some of the snobby kids watched in shock and stepped back in reaction to the show Carlos and Jay were putting on.

This overly chipper lady made her way over with Prince Ben (who was recognizable anywhere nowadays thanks to him almost being made King.) and a girl with a graceful smile.

Mal shuddered. It was making her feel tense and a bit sick to the stomach.

This was worse than anything she had heard of, worse than any program she had seen; these people reeked of goodness.

She would have to roll in the dirt later just to feel like the world made any kind of sense.

"Hello, I am Fairy Godmother." The woman said with a very dramatic vow.

"Fairy Godmother?" Mal asked, surprised because she had imagined it'd be someone older. "The Fairy Godmother. Cinderella's Fairy Godmother?"

"Yes, dear." Fairy Godmother answered with a sweet smile.

Ugh.

Then she turned her kind eyes to Jay and Carlos and with that sweet smile on her face said, "Please return everything back where you found it." Even her scolding or chiding sweet.

Were these people for real?

How did they lock up all the villains in a barrier? These people seemed like a breeze would bend them backward and make them break.

All four kids were momentarily thrown by the kindness shown. The worst that was happening so far was that they were being oggled at like they were wild animals. An argument could be made that they were wild.

Mal was so surprised she lost herself in her thoughts for a second until Prince Ben started speaking.

"Hi, I'm Ben, it's a pleasure to meet you all."

"It's our pleasure, too," Evie said, walking forward right in front of him with a huge grin and her cheeks a bit red. "Prince Ben."

"Just Ben," Ben said, awkwardly.

"Don't be shy, Ben. You're a Prince on your way to being a King." The girl said as she came to stand beside him and Evie. "I'm Princess Audrey. And you are?" She said, raising an eyebrow at Evie.

"I'm-"

"She's Princess Evie. Her Mom's a queen." Mal said, interrupting Evie, not liking this Audrey's attitude. Audrey and Evie both looked surprised. Mal probably should have kept quiet, but she had no right to be so condescending. She was definitely one of those obnoxious, prissy Princesses Mal was ready to hate.

"Royal status is only eligible to Auradon residents." Audrey was saying.

"She's a resident here now, right?" Mal asked Ben, and Ben looked at Evie, nodding.

"Yes, she is."

"So...what paperwork does she have to sign so she can be an "official" Princess?" Mal questioned playing up the casualness.

"That's not really necessary," Evie said, flustered. Mal decided to let it go, nodding to Evie's look pleading Mal to leave it alone, but to everyone's surprise, Ben said,

"I'm sure the process will be easier once you're here for a few months, and your residency is complete."

"Right," Evie said, but from her awed expression, she was shocked.

"So, you're Evie." Ben said, back with a grin.

"Yes. Just Evie." Evie said, offering her hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Evie. It is nice to meet all of you." Ben said, turning to Mal, and offering her his hand. She shook it and he smiled. "Today marks the beginning of a new era." He said, heading to Jay and Carlos, shaking both of their hands, Carlos smearing Ben's hands with chocolate, and Jay looking down at him trying to intimidate him. Points for effort, but Ben wasn't being derailed. "It is..." He trailed off looking for all the world like he was trying to figure out the right way to finish his small announcement.

"A momentous occasion?" Mal supplied dryly, still thinking about that word "era", but to her surprise both Ben and Fairy Godmother, nodded at her, beaming.

"Yes. Exactly." Ben said, grinning at all of four of them, his blue eyes sparkling with barely restrained enthusiasm. "Now, let us start the tour if you all could follow me," Ben said, motioning to follow after him.

Mal thought for sure that Ben and Audrey and Fairy Godmother would leave to go do more important things, but they all lead the way through the school, each giving up random bits of information about the rooms, the schedules, the times, and in the end, Fairy Godmother was the first to leave.

"I will go and give each of you your schedules, but for now, I'm sure Ben and Audrey can finish the tour without me." Fairy Godmother said.

"Yes, of course, Fairy Godmother," Ben said, with that expected princely charm. As far as first impressions went, he was a Prince, he was good (no surprise there), and he was actually treating us with decency. Which fine, he's good, so it was expected, but as they showed us around the school, the rest of the student body seemed to ogle at them like they really were rabid animals or something.

It didn't bother Mal. She knew they thought anyone from the Isle was evil, just like she thought they were all uptight and prickly.

But while Jay smirked at some of the girls, and glared at some of the more bold guys who stared over, Carlos and Evie were looking less and less sure by the second. But that probably had to do with the fact that Audrey, while she wasn't doing anything 'wrong', she was still cold towards us. Next to Ben it was very obvious, but if Ben noticed he didn't mention it.

To Mal and Jay, this was normal, but both Evie and Carlos were feeling unnerved.

Ben and Audrey stopped when they reached the main room with a bookcase on the left, books missing but no one seemed alert. It was like they didn't know someone could steal from them. It was a very weird place.

"Alright, so now you know where everything is, and I'm sure that if you need help, you can ask us or anyone and they will help you." He really had faith in his future subjects if he thought anyone would be willing to help the villain kids. "All that's left are your rooms. I'll show Carlos and Jay to their rooms, and Audrey will show you both to your rooms."

Mal half wanted to protest and ask for Ben to lead the girls as well since Audrey didn't really seem all that happy to be leading them, but then Audrey nodded and Ben gently squeezed her arm giving her an affectionate grin, before turning to the boys and leading them away.

Jay and Carlos glanced back at the girls, but then they followed after Ben, and then it was just Audrey, Evie and Mal.

"Alright, let's go to your dorm room." She said with more practiced cheerfulness than before and well, it was irritating, but at least she wasn't being all grumpy on top of being irritatingly cheery.

**Mal's POV**

After leading us down a hallway and towards a long corridor, they finally ended up in front of a door. Audrey opened it without any trouble and she stepped inside, with us following after her.

It was...bright and fresh and full of color, and pretty much the first impression I had of Auradon all in one single room.

"It's-" Evie began, but then I finished.

"Bright," I said aggravated. "Evie, get the blinds over there," I said, heading to the ones closest to one side of the room. Evie closed the other blinds and I huffed, turning around only to see Audrey still there.

"Not a fan of the sun?" She asked.

Was she dumb?

"We don't have the sun in the Isle." I snapped.

"What do you-oh." An embarrassed look crossed her face before she cleared her throat. "Well, if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask for our help."

"Because you're here to help," I said.

"Yes." Audrey kept smiling.

Jeez, that was irritating. "Right."

I expected her to leave, but when she didn't, both Evie and I stared at her.

"Do you need anything?" I asked, which was funny since what could we help her with really.

"No, I-" She shook her head. "It's nothing."

"You have something to say, Princess, say it," I said, crossing my arms.

"Your Mom is Maleficent," Audrey stated, and I narrowed my eyes.

"Yeah."

"I heard that she's very terrifying." Audrey supplied and the simple statement surprised me so much that I frowned.

"Yeah, she has her days."

"Yeah," Audrey said quietly before she shook her head. "Well, Ben asked me to help you, so if you have any questions now is the time to ask."

I doubted I could ask her where Fairy Godmother's wand was, so I looked at Evie, and shrugged.

"No questions."

"Alright." Audrey had that graceful smile on her face. Not sweet like Fairy Godmother's, but graceful. "Lunch passed already, but dinner will start soon, so I'll come back and get you then."

Evie and I nodded and like that Audrey turned and left.

"I can't believe you asked Ben about my royal status," Evie said with an embarrassed groan.

"Well, you are a Princess, so why not?"

"We're not going to stay here long enough for anything, M." Evie reminded me, and it wasn't like I forgot, but she was right.

"You don't need that silly paper anyway. You'll be a Princess in our world."

Evie gave me a nervous grin, and I frowned at her.

"What?"

"I don't think so, M," Evie said.

"Why not?"

"Because our world isn't made for Princesses. Mom was a Queen in her time, but after the Isle, I think we're too far from being anything we're supposed to hate." Evie sat down in one of the bed and looked around.

"Is that really what you think?"

She hesitated before nodding. "I'd never say this in front of Mom, but yeah."

Neither one of us said anything after that. What was I supposed to say, anyway? I was thinking of bringing up ideas to what we could do to get the wand, but I think that would be a bad follow up to Evie's confession.

I still couldn't believe it. I had known her for a while now and she never told me this before. Now, we were so close to winning, to finally being free, and all for what? So she would lose something nonexistent her Mom had groomed her for?

Evie started to unpack, and I decided to sit down and looked at Mom's magic book. Anything to get a distraction.

**I think from now on I'll write from Mal's POV. I think like that I can do more quicker updates, since I already have all the future chapters written down, but in first person and it's tiring changing 'I' to 'Mal'. Tell me what you think anyway.**


	13. 13) Good Guys

**I'm just going to do a bit of consecutive updates so I can catch up my story up to my current chapter. I hate that I'm updating both here and in wattpad and it's the same story. Anyway, enjoy the new chapters. I'll be updating more later today because we're finally in Auradon and I'm happy about that.**

Audrey did come back to lead us for dinner. I was still very confused by her earlier comment about my mother, but seeing as all these prissy uptight princes and princesses knew who our parents were of course they would have questions.

But it wasn't until all of us were sitting down and eating a bit of everything, Evie reminding us to pace ourselves so we wouldn't get sick, that I found out who Audrey's parents were.

Ben had come to sit with us, Evie quickly wiping her mouth with a napkin, and motioned for us to do as well, so we did, albeit a bit slower than her.

"How are you guys settling in? I hope that your rooms were to your liking." Ben started, looking at Evie and me at his last words.

"It's good," I told him.

"It's all very comfortable," Evie said and Ben nodded, his smile faltering slightly in his face, but he quickly regained it.

"I'm glad to hear it. Is there anything you need?"

We all glanced at each other, I don't know if the others would even ask for anything, but the only thing I needed was to get a wand, and I couldn't exactly ask that now could I?

"No," I answered with a shake of my head when I looked at Evie, Jay, and Carlos waiting for them to say something.

"Alright, well don't be afraid to ask if you need anything." He was about to stand up when he sat back down again. "Actually, I almost forgot. These are your schedules for tomorrow." Ben said handing each of us a slip of paper.

I frowned as I skimmed through the words not really reading the material. I resisted the urge to scoff. If we were lucky we would be able to get the wand tonight and then get out of here and back to the isle by early morning.

I'm not one to waste time and the more time we spent here the harder it would be to get what we needed.

"Alright, I'll let you go back to your dinner, and seriously if you need anything you can ask me or anyone else here," Ben said, in emphasis, and he didn't leave until we all nodded.

I folded up my schedule not giving it much thought since I already had a plan to get out of here by tonight.

"He really is a prince," Jay said with a snort.

"You can say that again," I added dryly. Ben was nice, but like most 'heroes' he was too nice, and something about that just pissed me off a little bit.

"I think he's nice," Evie said quietly.

"He's a prince, he has to be nice." I pointed out.

"No, I mean, he's actually nice, not polite nice," Evie said with a frown. "I might not be explaining this right."

But still, Carlos nodded, "Yeah, he actually seems like a good guy."

I frowned, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. "Guys, he's a hero's kid. He has to be a good guy." Evie and Carlos shared a glance, but before either of them could say anything to my words, Jay interrupted with:

"Audrey actually was a surprise."

I frowned. "Why? Because she's a nice princess?"

Jay chuckled, "No, because she's Sleeping Beauty's daughter and she actually treated you decently."

I was taking a bite of something and choked when I heard that. It was Evie patting me in the back that helped me gain composure. "She's what?!" I hissed quietly.

Jay and Carlos were now the ones sharing a look, and Evie also looked confused and surprised, a small mercy in the face of this news.

"Yes, she's Sleeping Beauty's daughter. I thought you knew." Jay said quietly.

"No, we didn't exactly talk," I answered him.

"Well, maybe they are decent," Evie said as a compromise, watching me with open worry and couldn't she stop openly show emotion like that? Too late, because Jay and Carlos were also looking at me with worry. What was the big deal anyway?

"What's the big deal? I'm not my Mom and she's not her Mom." This was an off-handed remark, not even thinking of what I said or what my words meant then, but the others visibly relaxed and all began eating again.

"So what's tourney?" Carlos asked as I started to eat my food. We all looked at each other frowning, and just like that our last conversation was forgotten.

**Since I don't want to waste time working on italics and stuff, I'm just going to make my author's notes bold but that's it. I'm just ready for you guys to read this story and I can focus on one chapter for this story.**


	14. 14) The Wand

**A new chapter, yay. Tell me what you think.**

Much later, when the curfew was on, Evie and I sneaked our way out of dorm room and sneaked into the boy's dorm room. I was feeling very full and like I would burst from all the food I had eaten that day. It was one of the few delicacies I could accept were perfect.

When we got to the boy's room they were both acting like they hadn't eaten a lot more than us.

"How are you able to move right now?" Evie demanded to know in a hissed whisper.

Jay and Carlos shared a look, before shrugging.

"We're growing boys."

"That's stupid," I said, sitting down on the bed closest to me, which happened to be Carlos's apparently because Jay was setting up all these stolen goodies in his bed.

"You know we're here to get one thing in specific, right?" I said with a smirk.

"Not like we can't have a little fun along the way," Jay said, but there was this weird edge to his voice. I decided to ignore it, because we were running out of time and I wanted to finish this now, once and for all.

"Evie, mirror?" I said and Evie pulled out her mirror from her small blue purse and nodded to me for more directions. "The wand." I nodded back to her.

"Magic mirror in my hand, show me where Fairy Godther's wand stands." She said once and the mirror showed some purple smoke before it showed us the location of the wand.

"It's in a museum." Jay pointed out as we all crowd Evie to take a look in the mirror.

I don't even need to say anything because Carlos is already heading towards the computer and typing away, a moment later he turned the computer in our direction. "The museum's 2.3 miles from here." He said with a wide smile and we all shared a glance, smiling at how quickly he got all the results back already.

We didn't waste any time in heading to the museum, and long story short, after a small trial and error with the guard we finally made it inside. Carlos had insulted my Mother's spinning wheel and I wanted to point out that the spinning wheel was already made, the magic was what took effect and used the spinning wheel as a conduit, but decided that I didn't care what he thought and so we made our way up the stairs, careful to make sure that the guard was still asleep as he hurried up the stairs.

Everything was fine until we ran into a big room that at first glance just showcased a lot of statues and artifacts, but once I really paid attention it was clear that those statues and artifacts were all about villains.

I stared at the statue of my Mom, of all the trinkets around us, they were a display of all the evil they had done, and in that moment I felt this big divide between the 'good guys' and us.

Growing up it was knowing that they were all living better than us, that they had everything so easy, while we all had to fight to survive, and I knew we were different from each other, that we would never see eye to eye.

But seeing this display, it made the whole perspective on how they saw us a lot more different. Because they weren't looking at us, they were looking at danger, and warnings and they would hate us until the end of time.

So why Ben, and Audrey and Fairy Godmother wanted to help us made no sense if this was the message that got sent across as we were growing up.

And yet I couldn't be angry or offended, we were right here to steal their precious wand so we could keep doing evil.

Angry and annoyed with these thoughts, I turned away. "Come on," I ordered and told myself that I didn't care what these goodie two shoes thought of us villains. It didn't matter what they thought.

But by the time we reached the wand, none of us moved to get it for a second.

This was it, we were so close to having everything we wanted coming true. We just had to get the wand and then it would be the end of everything.

But just as I was swallowing down whatever sour feeling kept persisting inside of me, Jay moved to get closer to the wand, and then it just hit me that there was probably some kind of alarm mechanisms in place.

"Jay, don't. Don't!" I hissed, but he only smirked at me, winking and then reached out to the wand without a single care in the world.

Just like that this loud blaring alarm started going off and in a panic I placed my hand on the person next to me so we could get out of here.

"Come on!" I shouted and only noticed then that the person I had been leading Carlos away but didn't really have time to think because the alarm was going off and we had to sneak around the guard who had woken up!

We made it outside in one peace, and right then the alarm turned off. I sighed in relief, thanking whatever miracle happened, but to my surprise, only Jay and Evie were out of the museum with me.

"Where's Carlos?" I asked.

They both looked around, Evie heading closer to the door and quickly called out, "Carlos!"

It was only when I saw Carlos step out of the museum and close the door behind us that I lead the way out of there.

I took one more forlorn look at the museum and at the wand that was inside and knew that tonight was not our night.

"Come on," I said, and started running back in the direction of the school, careful to keep to the shadows so we wouldn't be spotted, or if we were no one would be able to see us very clearly. "Great going, Jay," I grumbled annoyed. "Now we have to go to school tomorrow!"


	15. 15) First Day In Auradon

**I decided to be nice and upload a new chapter early. I've got free time and soon I won't have wi-fi at home so I'm doing what I can as fast as possible. I still have the wifi at the library but the 40 minute walk in this heat? Killer. Anyway, on to the story. This is one of my favorite chapters. Enjoy.**

Since we didn't succeed in getting the wand the night before we had to go to class the next day and I was not happy about it.

"Come on, Mal, we have to go," Evie said, trying to be enthusiastic, but when I stayed sitting down in my bed, arms crossed, she huffed, hands on her hips and giving me a look that meant that she was not going to let me skip out. Not today.

"We need to stay out of their radar, Mal. The more we blend in and not get attention to ourselves the better. They'll leave us alone and then have a better plan for next time since we know that they have two magic shields." She frowned thoughtfully for a moment. "I wonder if they will increase the protections or just think that it was a fluke." She muttered under her breath.

"It's handled, Carlos took care of it," I said, thinking more of her words than of what I had said. I was considering my options and weighing in how right she was when I noticed that Evie was giving me a perplexed look. "What?"

"Nothing...so are we going? We can get breakfast."

Mal sighed. "I don't know why we had to wake up so early," I grumbled annoyed.

"So we could eat breakfast, duh," Evie said with a smile and 30 minutes later when Evie and I were eating breakfast with the boys I had to admit that Evie was right in waking us up early. There was a big chance that she woke us up earlier so she could convince me to go to class today, but I was going to leave that alone.

"The good thing is we don't have a lot of classes," Jay said, looking over his schedule.

"I don't think that'll last long."

"It doesn't matter we still have to work on a second plan and this time we won't screw up, alright, Jay?"

"It was an accident," Jay said, staring down at his schedule. I frowned at him, but then Fairy Godmother arrived right then.

"Good morning, kids. I just wanted to check if you had any complaints, any questions or concerns?"

The four of us looked at each other, and again I wondered how stupid these heroes were that they would think anyone would answer that honestly.

"We're fine." I finally answered.

"Are you sure?" Fairy Godmother asked, looking at the others.

"We're fine," I repeated, putting more emphasis on my words. There was the smallest instance were her smile weakened, but then she nodded.

"Alrighty then, you kids enjoy your breakfast and I will see you in class!" And then she bounded off.

I sighed, looking at my schedule again and resisting eating my food. It was good, but last time I got a stomachache, and the last thing I wanted today was to let myself enjoy all these delicacies. All that mattered was the plan.

"Aren't you going to eat more, Mal?" Evie asked, and I briefly wondered if she had mind powers.

"Not hungry." I stood up. "I'm going to check out my locker. See you guys in class." I said, edging my plate closer to the others because if we learned one thing in the Isle was that we didn't waste food.

I caught one glance of the others looking over at me worried, but I waved that off to me seeing things because yes, they were my gang and we were in a mission, but we didn't do feelings. The closest we got was friends, and that was always precarious because people could always betray you.

To this day, Jay is the only one I fully trust.

When I got to my locker, I examined the boring blue and sighed to myself, feeling like there was an undercurrent of something running through my veins.

It was probably the knowledge that if I didn't succeed my Mom would be disappointed in me, would hate me more than she already did, and that hurt me more than I could say.

I looked through my bag for the purple, black and green cans of spray that Jay had given to me this morning, and irritated, drew my Long Live Evil graffiti. By the end, I was able to breathe a little better and told myself that I was being irrational. There was nothing wrong. We had one small setback, soon we'd get the wand, I'd be in Mom's good graces and things would be perfect.

Remedial Goodness 101 was a stupid class, but I was the only one who answered right every time. The more Fairy Godmother looked proud, and the more the others looked at me with awe, the more that itching feeling began to appear again. I distracted myself by drawing the wand.

Fairy Godmother was far away enough that I didn't worry about her realizing what I was doing, and so long as I kept answering correctly she left me alone.

I was almost done when she asked a question of what we should do if we found a baby, listing the option and obviously, the answer was C. Give it a bottle. That was the only one that seemed the opposite of what anyone in the Isle would do.

Evie tried to answer, but she was asking for B, and I stared at her incredulously.

"Okay, anyone else?" Fairy Godmother said, with slightly less confidence. "Mal?"

"C, give it a bottle," I said.

"Correct, again." Fairy Godmother said proudly again and I tried to be irritated with her, because no one was that chipper, ever.

"You are on fire, girl," Carlos said like it was a big deal.

"Just pick the one that doesn't sound like any fun," I replied, because how hard was it for them to grasp?

"Oh," Evie and Carlos both nodded in understanding and I couldn't see Jay, but I bet he was going to start using that method. He was quick at getting the hang of things.

I didn't think much of it, because right then this mousy girl in a dull, long blue dress walked past our tables, folding herself as much as she could like she was trying to not get attention to herself, but obviously, doing that made people pay more attention to her.

I couldn't make out what she said, but Fairy Godmother instead tugged her to the front of the classroom where she smiled at us all. "Kids, this is my daughter, Jane. Jane, these are our new transfer students. Evie, Mal, Carlos, and Jay." Fairy Godmother introduced us, and Jane tried giving us a weak smile, but our reputation preceded us because she couldn't make eye contact as she said, "Hi."

She handed her Mom the papers before speed walking away, yelping quietly as she passed us, and wow, that was a very dramatic reaction to us.

Fairy Godmother got our attention back to class, but I was already forming a plan of action. Jane seemed like a good candidate for getting the wand.

She was Fairy Godmother's daughter after all, how more useful could a person be? Was she a person? She was half fairy, which in the olden days would have erased her human side and she would have been acknowledged as a creature and not a person. In this time and age, she was half-human-

I was rudely taken out of my own contemplative thoughts by Jay who pulled Carlos into the desk and started to wrestle with him.

What idiots, I thought exasperated as Fairy Godmother banged on the board with her ruler.

"That's enough, boys. I trust you'll be able to work that energy off on the Tourney field."

"We don't know what that is," Carlos said, shoving Jay aside when he was finally able to sit up. Jay, because he's always up for playing, shoved him back.

And thus began Fairy Godmother explaining to us what Tourney was, and telling them that she would help them get practice uniforms before lunch.

All in all, it was an interesting day.

It only got better when I rummaging through my locker for my things and when I closed it, there was Audrey. I was so glad that I didn't jump back like a wimp.

"Hello, Mal," Audrey said, with forced friendliness.

"Your majesty," I replied and quickly Audrey's smile slipped away.

"Audrey's fine."

"I've got to go, Audrey," I told her, heading down towards the stairs instead of down the hall heading towards the dorm rooms. "I told Carlos I would watch his practice with Ben."

"Oh, that's fine, I can go with you!" She said, and I almost groaned, but nodded and let her lead the way.

We sat in the lower levels of the bleachers and I resigned myself to watching Carlos practice running (?) for however long when I Ben noticed us and waved over. Carlos looked over as well and hesitated before waving, too.

Audrey gave a dignified, princess wave, while I saluted and sighed. If I was Carlos I'd be confused, too. But it's fine. So long as Audrey didn't try talking with me that was fine.

"So, how do you like Auradon so far?"

And that didn't last very long.

"It's been less than 24 hours. Hard to decide what my first impression is."

"What's the first thing that comes to mind?"

I thought for a moment, before answering honestly. "I'm wondering what you're playing at here."

"What?" Audrey said, furrowing her brow.

"You know who I am right? So, why are you talking to me?"

Audrey didn't answer right away, instead, she took a deep breath and looked over at Ben.

"Ben is my best friend." She began and I sat back wondering what story she was going to tell me. "When he told me that he was going to try and bring kids here from the Isle of the Lost, specifically the daughter of the fairy who hurt my Grandparents, and my Mom...I was angry with him." Audrey paused, taking a deep breath in. "I wouldn't talk to him for two months, but then he visited me and told me that he was going to bring up the idea with his parents, and that he was going to do it, and that he was sorry that he had hurt me, but that he didn't mean to." She swallowed, shaking her head. "I was still so angry, accused him of terrible things, and still, he explained to me that it wasn't fair that you and the other kids were locked in that place for things you didn't commit. That it wasn't your fault who your parents were, but that their crimes were not your crimes." She laughed, wiping at her eyes quickly and I frowned, backing away slightly because this was not the reaction or the story I had been expecting. She turned to me, looking right into my eyes when she continued with, "That's when I saw Ben as he really was. This kind-hearted King that would do right by every one of his subjects. He wasn't trying to hurt me, or ignore the pain that my family went through, he was trying to help innocent kids trapped in a place that they didn't belong." Audrey shook her head, swallowing thickly again. "I felt so ashamed for everything I told him then, for every old prejudice thought I had against all of you, because he was right, and I never thought about it like that because it was so clear that you were the bad guys." Audrey cleared her throat. "So, no, I'm not playing at anything. I'm trying to stand by Ben when everyone else thinks that he's lost his mind. I think that you all deserve a chance and I'm sorry that you all got it too late."

I blinked at her, trying to study her face, study everything about what she said because I wanted to think that she was a liar, but she looked so earnest, and I wasn't dumb. I always knew when people were lying. She didn't raise any alarms.

"Wow, that's not what I was expecting," I said honestly. I sat back. "Wait, so you think like Ben does, that we're not evil?"

Audrey smiled to herself. She answered, "I'm hoping good."

"You are not what I expected," I told her honestly.

"Is that a good thing?"

"It's-" I was about to answer when I saw a little moving brown ball running closer. "What's that?" I asked.

Audrey looked over. "Oh, that's Dude. He's our mascot."

"What is it?" I said, still not making out what Dude was.

"Oh, he's a little dog. You'll be able to see him when he's closer. What's wrong?" She asked, standing up after I shot to my feet.

"A dog?"

"Are you afraid of dogs?" Audrey asked, alarmed.

"Not me." And before I could think I was running off to the middle of the field where Carlos was kneeling down ready to do another run, Ben standing over him a few feet away. I had just gotten close enough when Carlos turned back to see who was barking and I saw him tense up. "Carlos," I said, moving to stand in front of him so he would pay attention to me, because I knew he was afraid of dogs, and the dogs here were fine if they were allowed to run around freely. At least that was what I hoped and what I was thinking before Carlos shot up to his feet, grabbed my hand and started running away, screaming the whole time, which made it harder for him to hear me.

Over Carlos screaming and Dude barking, I could make out Ben and Audrey shouting something, but I couldn't make it out, instead, we got into the forest and Carlos paused when he saw a small space between multiple trees, with some old tree trunks in between. "Up, Mal!" He said, pushing me up before I could argue, and I was too stunned that he had helped me first, that he had helped me at all, because right after he got me up there, the little dog showed up, and he paled jumping up into the other trunk and clutching it like his life depended on it.

"Carlos, It's fine!" I told him, ready to get down and show him that it was fine, but he grabbed my arm, his grip tight from fear probably and shook his head.

"Don't. That thing is a beast!"

Ben and Audrey arrived then, Audrey was holding her heels in her hands.

"Whoa, whoa, it's okay," Ben said, trying to restore peace. He grabbed Dude, who had by then, stopped trying to climb over to us, and looked a lot less chipper than before. Had it been playing with us? Ben took Dude into his arms and gave us both a reassuring smile. "Dude is friendly, he won't hurt anyone."

"He won't even hurt a fly," Audrey said, stepping closer.

Carlos was still panting, but now it was more from being so close to a dog than anything else. He still hadn't let go of me, but with the way he was shaking a bit, I decided not to push him away just yet. "That dog is a killer." He told them both. Ben and Audrey shared shocked looks.

"Who told you that?" Audrey asked, shaking her head horrified.

"My Mom," Carlos answered.

"Cruella?" Ben said confused.

"She's a d-d-dog expert. A d-dog yellerer!" His grip tightened even more, obviously afraid. "Why are you holding him! He's going to attack you two!"

Audrey gave Ben a helpless look.

"He's not dangerous, Carlos. Dogs are friendly here." Ben explained.

"Look," Audrey said, extending her arms to Dude. "Come here, Dude, who's a good boy?" The dog started to wag it's tail excitedly as Ben passed him to Audrey. "See? He's harmless."

Carlos swallowed thickly, shuddering slightly before turning to me.

"He won't bite. I'll protect you." I teased with a smirk.

Carlos laughed, before letting out a breath. I stepped down, Carlos tensed up again whipping to look at Dude to see if he would attack me, but when he didn't, Carlos swallowed again.

"I can hold him." I offered.

"Don't!" Carlos said, tugging at my arm.

"It's fine. If Ben and Audrey say that he's harmless then he's harmless." I told him calmly, focusing only on Carlos, and Carlos swallowed again, looking at Dude, who was in Audrey's arms. "I'll be fine," I assured him with confidence because I was the leader of our group. It wouldn't do to show fear. I didn't put a lot of thought into the stories Jay heard Cruella say, and anyway, it was a tiny dog right? No way would be able to rip out my throat.

"Come on, it's fine," I told him, tugging at his arm that he was holding on to me. Carlos let go off the tree, before stepping down after me and looking at Dude with apprehension. "Is he good with strangers?" I asked Audrey.

"He's friendly with everyone." She said, and I nodded because that's all I knew what to say in reference to dogs. I saw that in the Auradon News Channel a long time ago, but that was it. I stepped closer, only to have Carlos hold me back by my hand.

"Carlos, he's a good dog. Maybe your Mom was wrong." I told him, and he stared at me, before letting go of my hand reluctantly.

And right then, when he let go of me, I realized that I was actually a bit scared of holding Dude. Was he going to be fine with me holding him? Maybe it would hate me?

Enough, Mal, get a grip. I scolded myself and stepped closer to Audrey. But stopped when the dog focused on me. "Hi, Dude," I said weakly. Dude leaned forward, sniffing at the air and Audrey walked closer. I extended my hand for the dog to smell and gasped when it sniffed my hand gently. No growling, no biting.

"He won't bite," Audrey said, holding Dude out to me, and Dude, not having somewhere to balance his weight, leaned forward to me, until I had him in my arms. Carlos gasped behind me, and I had to admit I gasped a little, too, but then I managed to hold Dude correctly, and he started to sniff at my hair and shirt, before licking my nose and cheeks.

I couldn't help chuckling, backing my head away from the dog trying to kiss me. "See?" I said, turning to Carlos, and he stared at us stunned. "You want to hold him now?"

"I don't think-"

"Don't think, Carlos, just do," I said, holding back from walking closer because I knew he needed to get closer on his own.

"Well..."

And then it was ten or so minutes of Ben, Audrey and I talking Dude up, who had settled into my arms comfortably by the time Carlos was convinced that he could hold Dude without danger.

"Okay," Carlos said shakily.

I took one step closer and waited for Carlos to get closer on his own. He did, hesitating at first, but when he looked at me and the other two behind me, we must have looked encouraging because he stepped even closer and then I was handing Dude to him.

"Hi," Carlos said, right before Dude wagged his tail and started licking his face, too. The relief in his laugh was completely palpable and I couldn't help but stare because Carlos had dealt with his fear.

...and I helped him.

Whoa, wait, what?

Just as the realization of this started to measure in my head, I heard shuffling behind me and saw Ben and Audrey walking away.

"We'll be waiting by the bleachers," Ben told us.

"I'll watch your bag for you," Audrey called out just as she walked off.

Wait, where they leaving me with Carlos?

"He is friendly," Carlos said, with awe in his voice, a different kind of awe than the one from this morning in class. This was the awe of finding more to something that he thought was possible.

He sat down in the trunk of cut down trees and I stood awkwardly above him. When Dude turned to me, looking excited at finally having positive attention, I walked over, sitting down next to Carlos and petting Dude.

"He's not revolting at all," I said, sardonically.

"Who would've thought," Carlos said, with a more relaxed smile.

I've never seen him smile like this before, the thought came out of nowhere and it bothered me. Not because I noticed it, but because it was true. And then he looked at me, still smiling and I felt something strange form in my chest, like a warmth of some sort? It felt nice.

"We should head back," I said, all business.

"Yeah," We both stood up, and right when I thought things were not going to get awkward, he turned to me and said, "Thanks, Mal...I won't mention it again, but I just wanted to say it once." And then he walked ahead of me before I shook my head and followed. Shaking my head at there being anything weird going on because nothing was going on.

Yes, Carlos had thanked me. Auradon was obviously rubbing off on him, but at least he compromised by never mentioning it again.

When we got back to the bleachers, Audrey and Ben were sitting down talking and they both got up with smiles a lot more natural than before. Okay, there was that weird thing going on again.

"We can practice running tomorrow, but for now, we did good today, Carlos," Ben announced. "I'm sorry about not introducing you to Dude earlier, it would have been better, but at least you're both getting along now."

"Yeah, they're on the road to being best friends." I was being sarcastic, but they all smiled like what I said was a joke. No one but Jay, and sometimes Evie, did that. It was weird. This whole afternoon was weird.

"Here," Audrey said, handing me my bag.

"Thanks," I answered, knowing that being polite was the way to go around here.

"I should go, I've got to book an appointment for a dress fitting, or anywhere really," Audrey said, and I was sure that there was a story there. And maybe it was the way things were going so far, but I found myself saying.

"Evie's good at making beautiful dresses. I'm sure if you showed her what you wanted she could make you a dress."

"Really?" Audrey asked.

"That sounds like a good idea," Ben said, enthusiastically, nudging Audrey.

"Evie won't mind?" Audrey asked, and I paused for a moment.

"I'll text her right now." Before either of them could reply, I texted Evie.

Mal: Hey, can you make Audrey a dress?

Evie: Princess Audrey?

Mal: Yes.

Evie: I'll need money to buy the material.

"She says she can, but she'll need money to buy the material for the dress."

"I can pay for whatever is necessary." Audrey agreed without hesitation.

Mal: She can pay for it.

Evie: Tomorrow after class?

"Tomorrow after classes?" I asked, looking up at Audrey waiting for an answer.

"That's perfect," Audrey said, smiling like she couldn't believe her luck.

Mal: She said yes.

"Well, that's settled," I said.

"Thank you, Mal," Audrey said, sincerely.

"It's fine. I'm sure you would've found someone eventually, but this way it's faster."

"Yeah," Audrey answered, and there was a tense moment where Ben looked at Audrey with some concern flashing in his face, but then it disappeared. If Audrey noticed it, she acted like she hadn't, because she grabbed her bag. "Almost time for dinner. I'll see you guys there, I don't feel like taking my books with me." She said, before waving goodbye to all of us, including Dude.

"I'll see you both later, too. Good practice, Carlos." Ben petted Dude before leaving as well.

I looked through my bag for a second to make sure that everything was in there, and it was, even my magic book. I still felt a little paranoid that they had been alone with my bag, but they had been talking and smiled at us like nothing was wrong, so maybe they didn't look through my bag.

What was up with people in Auradon being so trusting?

I looked over at Carlos who was still holding on to Dude.

"You are not going to eat with Dude in your arms," I told him then.

"I won't, but he's not what I expected." He said and I frowned because I had said the same thing about Audrey. Maybe they weren't what we expected at all. Did that change things?

"Just wash your hands before you eat." Another thing I knew about dogs that I forgot about until right now.

"Alright," Carlos said, but he wasn't paying attention, he was completely enamored by the dog. Good thing, too, because I looked at Carlos a little too long, wondering at his weird behavior today, but I was hungry and I decided that I would think about this later.

Today was weird. I blamed the general ambiance of Auradon.

**Hope you guys liked it. Thanks for following the story and for the reviews. They keep me going. :)**


	16. 16) The Carlos Method

**I don't have wifi anymore, so expect less updates than before, but still, hope you enjoy the new chapters.**

The next day passed uneventfully until lunch where I was putting some of my books away and caught sight of Jane passing by. She didn't notice me because she was watching Jay flirt shamelessly with some of the girls who had seen him practice Tourney and seemed to be enamored with him.

Typical Jay.

Even here in Auradon he was capable of stealing girl's hearts and wrapping them around his little finger.

Jane ducked her head down and walked past him as well, I frowned at Jay's back for a second before following after Jane.

In the moments that it took us get to the bathroom, I decided to make a quick plan. Jane seemed to be interested in Jay, probably only a small infatuation, but I could work that into my plan to get her to grab the wand.

But with how to herself she seemed, I think that it would take time.

_That's fine. I'm patient._

After I gathered my thoughts outside the bathroom, I opened the door and entered finding Jane by the mirror, looking at her reflection with obvious self-consciousness.

This was a girl with low self-esteem.

It didn't take more than a second for Jane to glance past her own reflection to catch me standing there before she gasped and hurried to get her things.

"I'm sorry! I'll get out of your way!"

"Don't go!" I said, stepping in her way and she clutched her books to her chest like a shield. "I just wanted to make sure I looked good. We can share the bathroom." I told her, and when she didn't look convinced I knew I had to use a more persuasive method.

I moved past her to stand in front of the mirror. It was a risky move, letting her have room to leave, but if Carlos taught me anything was that it's better to let the other person feel like they had a choice.

And Jane was the female version of Carlos, down to her nervous energy. If anything, the only difference I could see, and this was a surface interpretation, was that Jane lacked Carlos' bravery when it came to defending others. If Jane had any bravery, I couldn't see it.

Jane didn't step closer, but she did turn her body in my direction. It probably helped that my back was to her.

Usually, I'd never leave my back open like this, but I had the mirror in front of me in case action was needed.

"Thanks, I guess." Jane said and I caught her eyes in the mirror, she closed herself in under my gaze. I don't think it was just because she was scared of me, but because she wasn't used to making eye contact with people. She really had it bad.

"For what?"

"Not kicking me out." She blushed a deep red. "I mean, I-I,"

"Do people normally kick you out of the bathroom?" I asked, and ran my hands through my hair to keep up my ruse.

"Well, no, but I don't like taking up space." She confessed.

I frowned at that, forgetting about playing up the I'm-fixing-my-hair act and turned around to her.

"How would you take up space?"

"I don't know," She shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

"You're not taking up my space." I told her honestly, because at the end of the day, honesty was my M.O..

"Really?" Jane asked, shoulders tense, like she expected a bad reaction.

This girl showed her feelings in every single part of her being, not just in her face, if the others kids saw this, they probably took advantage of her.

Much the same way I was trying to.

"Yeah," I turned back around, both to act normal and because I wasn't trying to think about anything too much right then. "You're one of the few people here who's actually spoken to me."

"It-it's been two days," Jane said, stepping closer. "Your friends are doing okay, you will, too." Jane said, and my mind immediately went to Jane watching Jay flirting with the girls a moment ago.

"That's sweet, but I don't mind being alone. Better alone than with bad company." I said before laughing. "Ironically, I'm the bad company around here."

"You've had a longer conversation with me than anyone else here and I grew up with all of them." Jane said, completely honest. It wasn't trust, no, Jane was just that open about her feelings. It seemed like a correct assessment, but I wasn't sure, so I decided to throw her a bone.

"So, I'm not bad company?" I asked with a teasing smirk.

This seemed to ease her up a little and she approached the sink, even going as far as setting her books down. "No, but you can't really judge a book a book by it's cover. At least, that's what Mom always says and I think it might be the only saying I believe."

_I didn't even have to try very hard and she already brought up her Mom. The Carlos Method works wonders._

"Sayings are good and fine, but what helps me is magic." Jane's eyes widened a little. Oh no. I was losing her.

"You can do magic?" She asked in a whisper.

Nevermind.

"Yes. I figured you could, too, being the daughter of Fairy Godmother."

Jane shook her head, smiling like that was the silliest thing she had ever heard. "Mom doesn't practice magic anymore and I don't even know if I can do magic."

"Have you tried?" I asked, softening my tone so I wouldn't sound demanding.

"Well, no." Jane confessed. "I just thought I couldn't, since I never felt very magical."

"You probably just need a conduit." I said, off handedly, but this caught her attention.

"What's that?"

"It's a form of channeling your magic into something solid. It helps people who are beginning."

"A wand? Like my Mom's magic wand?"

An excited thrum ran through my body.

"Yes, that'd probably be able to help you channel your magic."

Jane shook her head, "I can't. Mom doesn't use her wand much anymore, I doubt she'd let me use it."

Gotta give it to her, she was fairly vague about the wand's location. She didn't even mention anything about the wand, instead keeping focus on herself and her Mom.

"Parents can be cruel." I shrugged, keeping my expression neutral, but on the inside, I felt my hope dwindling down to nothing. Jane wasn't going to be much help with the wand after all.

"Yeah," Jane said catching my attention, "Mom won't even let me get my hair done differently because according to her it's what on the inside that counts."

I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. "People from Auradon have interesting ways of thinking." I said, before facing Jane and examining her. "You know? I think I can do something about your hair." I said, because Jane wasn't much help, but if I got her on my side, she be handy later.

Jane reached up to her hair, "Really?" There was that nervousness from before.

"Come on, Jane, be a little brave. You said you wanted a different hair style, right?"

"I, well," She flushed nervously, before nodding, "Yes."

"What do you say?" I asked, getting my spell book out.

Jane wringed her hands before chuckling nervously, "Okay."

The spell I needed wasn't hard to find, and after saying the spell, watched as Jane's hair grew long into beautiful waves.

Jane turned to the mirror, watching herself in awe, she reached out for one of the curls, before smiling over at me. "Thank you."

"Us fairies should stick together," I said, seeding in the idea for her to trust me in the future.

Jane glanced over at me quickly with an awed expression on her face but then a soft smile formed on her lips and she nodded at me.

"You bet."

I nodded to her and made my way out.

I made it back to the lockers facing the field and Jay was still there, flirting with the girls. Gotta give it to him, he wasn't a quitter.

Jay glanced back at me, and I heard him bidding his fans goodbye before following after me.

"You sure you don't want to spend the rest of lunch flirting?"

Jay chuckled, putting his hands on his jacket pockets. "You gotta leave them wanting more." He said cockily. I chuckled and shook my head before sighing. "So?"

"So?"

"I saw you following Jane. Anything to report?"

I really should've known that he'd be able to multitask while he flirted.

"No," I sighed, "but I think I might've won her trust."

"How?" Jay asked, frowning.

"With hair." I said, and left him behind confused over what I had said. I didn't worry too much, he'd see her much later and figure it out.


	17. 17) Measure

After school, I was starting to become more preoccupied. Our first plan had failed, and Jane wasn't much help. It was true that we could attempt to get the wand once everything calmed down and no one suspected foul play. We'd probably be able to do it in a month, but that was too long.

I was stressing myself out when there was a knock to our door and Evie went to open it finding Audrey there.

I'd completely forgotten that she was supposed to be over today.

I sat up and bowed my head dramatically at Audrey, "Audrey?"

Audrey laughed, shaking her head, "You really don't have to do that." She turned to Evie, smiling at her. "Thank you so much for this."

Evie waved her off, getting everything she needed to measure Audrey for her dress. "It's no problem." She brought Audrey to the center of the room and asked her to stay still. "I've have some dress ideas I drew up last night. We can look them over once I'm done taking the measurements, but if you have something in mind we'll work on it together."

"Fantastic, thank you." Audrey said and since Evie was measuring Audrey's back, she glanced over at me and I knew I wasn't the only one who found her behavior a little weird.

"I didn't realize it'd be so hard to make fitting appointments in Auradon." Evie said innocently, writing down the measurements.

"Oh, it's the time of the season. Everyone needs dresses for homecoming, and then, of course, Ben's coronation has everyone in a frenzy." Audrey tried to laugh gently, but it sounded forced.

I frowned, sitting by the corner of the bed so I was closer to them both.

"That doesn't sound like the truth."

Evie at this point had made a full circle measuring Audrey's arm so she was also facing her.

With both of us watching her, Audrey gave us a guilty look. "It's just..." She trailed off and looked down, not continuing.

"Audrey?" I said and she looked up at me. "What is it?"

Audrey shook her head, "It's nothing. It's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous doesn't sound like nothing." Evie stated softly, not measuring anymore.

Audrey crossed her arms and sighed, "Everyone's a little testy because I agreed with Ben's choice to let all of you come to Auradon."

"Testy?" Evie repeated.

Dread settled in my stomach, "Are people shunning you?" I asked, remembering Audrey mentioning how she would try to book an appointment anywhere. Ben's enthusiasm when I had suggested Evie help. I stood up, not believing this. "Does Ben know? How is he okay with this?"

"He's not, but I told him to leave it alone." Audrey answered, Evie and I looked at each other confused. "Everyone will get over it soon. Once they see that you're just like us, that you're innocent, they'll get over it."

"But Audrey, how are you okay with this?" Evie asked.

"Because you all deserve to finally be free, that's more important than anything else."

"But-" I began but Audrey shook her head.

"Seriously, it's not a big deal. Ben already feels guilty as it is, and I don't want you guys to feel bad about something that isn't in your control. So, please, don't worry about it."

If I had any doubt of the trustworthy nature of good guys, Audrey put a stop to that. She was goodness personified. She really believed Ben, believed _us_, and I started to feel another strange emotion settle inside my stomach next to the familiar dread: I think it was guilt.

But I did what I knew best and quelled that down.

"You're going to make a good Queen some day." I said, my way of saying 'thanks'.

(The guilt doubled but I continued to ignore it.)

Audrey laughed gently, "That's a long way away."

"Aren't you and Ben already married by default?" I asked, because she was the one he had talked to about bringing kids from the Isle, and even after that small fight it had created, she still stood by him. Audrey was being ostracized by her people and she was still dealing it for us, sure, but also for Ben. That sounded like the hated Love Mom always told me to be weary of.

Audrey laughed at that, "No! He's like my brother. It's too weird to even consider Ben and me being anything else than friends." She smiled at us. "I don't know why people get that idea."

"You seem pretty close." I commented.

"You and Jay are close. Would you ever consider dating him?"

I pictured that for a moment but then quickly shook my head, "He's part of my gang." I said when I could finally find words.

Audrey looked away thoughtfully but then smiled.

I looked over at Evie and she turned to Audrey with a small polite smile, "It's an Isle thing. We can be part of a gang, but the moment people suspect something deeper than group survival it's an opening for attack."

Audrey paled at that, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't say sorry." I said.

"You're one of the few people who's decent with us, that's a lot more than we can ask for." Evie said, doing a lot better than me to make Audrey feel better, but Evie was always better with people than me.

"It's not nearly enough." Audrey replied fiercely, "But it will get better. Once the other kids from the Isle are brought here, it can be a new beginning."

"The other kids? Do you know when?" Evie asked.

"After Ben's coronation. He was only just able to bring the four of you because he's not King yet."

"Really?" I asked, my hands unfolding and dropping to my sides.

"All the kids?" Evie asked, putting her hand over her mouth.

"Yes," Audrey said nodding, "That's the plan."

"Does everyone know?"

"Ben made it clear that this change is happening."

"We didn't hear about this back in the Isle." I said.

"Ben didn't want to create chaos from this news, so he kept the news in Auradon so far."

Evie and I shared a look. For someone so good and kind-hearted, Ben knew the ugly side of the residents in the Isle. Because he was right, if this news found their way to the Isle, all the kids would probably be in danger from some of the villains. At best they ignored us, at worst we were pests.

"It'll be fine." Audrey said, and it sounded like she was trying to convince herself just as much as she was trying to convince us.

"Yeah, it sounds like the perfect plan." I said outloud and Audrey smiled beautifully.

"Let's finish taking these measurements, shall we?" Evie said, diverting the attention to a much lighter subject and it helped for the most part.

Once Evie was done taking the measurements, they both spent time looking over the book, but since it wasalmost time for dinner, Audrey told her she could come back tomorrow. So after saying she'd see us later at dinner, she excused herself and Evie and I were left alone.

"Mal," Evie began quietly.

"I know." I told her, because it wasn't necessary for her to say anymore. All the innocents from the Isle would get their freedom. That was basically what we were fighting for.

_Except _Mom and the rest of the villains wouldn't get free.

Could that be an option?

We did see Audrey as she walked to sit with Ben for dinner. She smiled at us and stared down at anyone who was caught staring.

Most of the kids went back to ignoring us and ate their dinner.

Evie and I were quiet from the news we had, Jay was the first one to notice and then quickly Carlos caught on.

"What?" Jay asked.

"We'll talk later." Was all Evie said, and that sobered them up quick.

Once we were done with dinner, Evie and I sneaked our way to the boy's dorm room and that's where all four of us sat in tense silence. Well, Evie was biting her lip nervously. Jay and Carlos were confused from us not sharing our news.

I was the one who was tense. My mind was reeling over the news.

"Just tell us already." Jay said, voice much too loud in the quiet.

"Ben's going to bring them here." I said, arms crossed and looking down.

"Who?" Carlos asked from his bed.

"Everyone innocent born in the Isle." Evie said, uncharacteristically serious. I didn't have to look up at her to know that she wasn't smiling.

There was stunned silence following her words. I still refused to look up.

"What?" Carlos whispered and then much louder: "I thought this was just an experiment. That they'd just send us back before the year was out."

"This is good, right?" Jay said.

No one said anything because what could we say? Of course, it sounded perfect. I could see how it could all be too good to be true, but if anyone could do anything it was Ben. He was already doing more than his Father and he wasn't officially King yet.

I turned around and stiffly walked to the door.

"Mal." Jay called out.

"We told you the news. I'm going to bed."

"But Mal-"

"I need to clear my head," I snapped looking over my shoulder, and all three were looking at me at a loss of words. "I'll see you tomorrow."

And with that I opened the door and shut it behind me, eyes welling up with tears, but I shut my eyes and forced that away, because I couldn't be weak. Not now.

When I made it to our dorm room, I made my way to the bed and laid down, staring up at the ceiling.

Ben's plan was the best option for anyone born in the Isle.

But that wasn't what we were here. We were here to break down the barrier and release the villains from the Isle. I shut my eyes, curling up on my side.

Ever since I was little I knew that some of the logic Mom and the other adults told us made no sense. I thought I was so smart because I could see the flaw in all their plans that led to their downfall, but now...

Now I was the one who stood in the way of positive change all at the expense of my Mom.

Tears spilled from my eyes before I wiped my face clean.

"Stop it, Mal. You're not weak." I whispered to myself, but that wasn't true, because I could feel my heart breaking inside my chest.

I had never felt so weak.


	18. 18) A Knight and A Prince

**I've been distracted lately, but here's this chapter.**

To say that I was in a bad mood the next day was an understatement. It was so bad Jane noticed during break.

"You okay?" She got this freaked out look on her face when I turned to her.

"Fine. Just tired." I said with a sigh. It was almost lunch time and I decided to take a chance with Jane. "You want to risk being ostracized?" She looked at me in question. "Want to have lunch with the bad kids."

Jane flushed. "Really?"

"Yeah, the other's won't mind. Ben and Audrey might join us, too."

"Really?"

It was our third day in Auradon Prep and since Audrey and Ben were taking risks for us we decided to invite them to have lunch with us. Jane might be hurt as well but she was already being bullied the least I could do was be a distraction and get her to trust me is to get her on my side.

"Yeah. You interested?"

Jane hugged her books to her chest. "The others won't mind?"

"No. I swear." The Carlos Method really came in handy for the most part.

"Okay." Jane chuckled nervously but I could tell she was excited. I grinned at her and led the way to our table.

I could use the distraction of having Ben, Audrey and Jane with us. At breakfast Jay tried to talk to me again about Ben's plan of bringing all the innocent kids from the Isle but I wasn't ready to talk about it.

In truth I wasn't ready to talk to him or Evie or Carlos about Ben's plan. The truth was I don't think I would ever be ready. Ben's coronation was going to be this Friday who knew how soon he'd bring the other kids from the Isle here.

It was all a mess.

I was very conflicted because on the one hand I wanted to do everything in my power for my Mom but on the other all the kids from the Isle, every single one of them could be free if I just betrayed Mom.

Betrayal. That was the word and the thing I've been avoiding since yesterday. Betraying Mom. Betraying myself. Betraying Evie, Jay and Carlos if I ruined this for them. So much betrayal and it all fell on me.

I knew it fell on me. Jay, Carlos and Evie were falling into place in Auradon. They were making a home for themselves here.

I was the problem. I was the only one holding on to the old plan.

I had no idea what to do.

"Mal?" Audrey asked when Jane and I made it to the table. Evie, Carlos and Jay looked at me cautiously. I focused on Ben and Audrey.

"We have a chemistry test tomorrow."

Ben gave me a smile. "You'll do fine."

"Mr. Harp likes to test people in the beginning and at the end of the year. He likes to compare how well he taught us. It's an ego boost." Audrey said. "So if you do badly just pass the test at the end of the year and Mr. Harp will feel like he did a great job."

"That's good to know."

I sat down next to Carlos, across from Audrey and Jane sat next to me. Evie smiled at her and Jane looked like she was relaxing by all this positive attention.

I glanced at Carlos and saw that Dude was snoozing by his feet. "You're really in love with that dog, huh?"

This was an easy subject to breach.

"He makes it easy to love him."

"Nothing in life should be easy." I said. It was an innocent remark because I liked to have the last word but it made Carlos, Evie and Jay tense up.

"You guys okay?" Audrey asked catching Ben and Jane's attention.

"Carlos and I used to not get along." I said quickly. "It took me a long time to trust him and sometimes I can still be cruel to him."

Ben, Audrey and Jane looked at Carlos. I looked over at him as well. Carlos was a trooper because he didn't miss a beat.

"Yeah. We get along better now."

"We just have to be careful what we do around Mal not to set her off." Jay joked and Evie laughed.

Audrey, Ben and Jane looked alarmed by Jay's words but as soon as Evie laughed they laughed as well.

"I'm feisty." I said.

"I think you're great." Jane said much to my surprise. To my embarrassment Audrey and Ben, and even Jay, Evie and Carlos nodded along with her.

"Thanks for the lovefest." I said in my kindest, least sarcastic tone as possible. It worked because Jane grinned at me.

It was while looking at her that I saw she looked tired.

"Are you okay? You look tired." I said.

"Oh." Jane waved me and the others off. "I've been having weird dreams lately. I think it's because it's the new school year."

"If they keep happening you should talk to your Mom." Ben suggested.

"I will. Thanks." Jane smiled at him.

Honestly, I think I was getting used to Auradon because this display of camaraderie didn't bother me like it normally would have. That was not good. It meant that I was getting used to this place, too.

And I only had until Friday to decide what I wanted to do because as much as Evie, Jay and Carlos wanted to make their parents proud at least once they wanted more to live freely.

I couldn't blame them.

As Ben and Audrey talked to Jane, who was loving this positive attention actually, I caught Carlos, Evie and Jay looking over at me.

I still wasn't ready to talk to them so I focused on the conversation Audrey, Ben and Jane were having. It was easier with them than with my own friends.

Who would've ever thought things would get this far?

After school at exactly four there was a Tourney game. Jane was the mascot and Audrey was a cheerleader and for the most part they didn't have any trouble although when they were waiting to cheer they mostly talked to each other.

Out of the two days Ben and Carlos practiced it wasn't enough apparently because Carlos was sitting out of the game. In a way it was a good thing because it seemed violent.

"Hey, M," Evie said and I tried not to cringe. Keyword: tried. I grimaced anyway. "I know, but, Mal, we have to talk about this."

"Why? Why do we have to talk about anything?"

Evie frowned at me. "You know why."

Evie was too smart for her own good. She wasn't telling me how serious things were she was just making sure I knew and understood and came to the conclusion on my own.

If I didn't admire how smart she was being I would've hated her.

"I know." I conceded.

Evie gave me a sad smile. "I'm sorry, M."

"It's none of your faults." I told her.

Evie nodded, sending me another sad smile.

"Hey, you're Evie, right?" A girl asked, sending me a grin in acknowledgement.

"Yes, who are you?" Evie asked.

"I'm Lonnie. My Mom's Mulan." She smiled at us but when we didn't react she waved it off. "It doesn't matter. I-well-I heard that you were doing a dress fitting for Audrey and I was wondering if you could help me."

Evie glanced at me. "You want my help?"

"If you can. If you can't it's fine but Ben's coronation is on Friday and getting an appointment for a last small redo is hard."

"Well, I guess."

"Really?" Lonnie grinned at her. "I have the dress all done. I'll bring it over tomorrow. I'll pay you if you want. I really appreciate the help."

"If you appreciate the help why are you paying me?"

"I heard you make your own clothes. I bet you'll make a great fashion designer. Your clothes are amazing. I'll be happy to be your second booking."

Evie grinned at that. "Thanks."

"She's smart, she can design, she does make up."

"Oh! Can you help me with my make up? You'd be a life saver."

"Sure. Is 8 okay?"

"That's fine. Ben's coronation won't be until 12 so we have time."

Lonnie and Evie continued to talk. Some of the other kids turned over curious and I began to see that the last three days of us acting normal had really made an impact.

The kids were seeing that we weren't trouble, that Ben and Audrey had been right and now even Jane and Lonnie were talking with us.

Maybe we wouldn't be friends but things were changing for the best.

It was actually true because I soon heard the sports announcer announce Carlos was being brought in the game.

I focused down at the field with a gasp.

"Carlos is playing." I said, grabbing Evie by her arm to get her attention.

And Carlos was playing. At first he fumbled against gravity but then he regained his equilibrium and was actually playing well with Jay and Ben.

And when he and Jay helped Ben score I joined in the cheering as well. Evie grinned at me and even Lonnie smiled at my enthusiasm. It didn't feel like anything special but I was happy because both Jay and Carlos were getting special praise for having helped Ben score.

"Those are our boys." I said proudly.

"They're both good players." Lonnie said.

"Yeah, they are." I said with a laugh. "Carlos has been practicing. Hopefully he doesn't get a big head."

"Is he your boyfriend?" Lonnie didn't mean anything by it. I could tell she was just curious but I blushed all the same. Evie's mouth dropped. "Sorry, did I say the wrong thing?"

"No. We just. We're friends."

"Oh." But she said _oh_in a way like she knew more than I did. "Well, he's cute."

I glared at her and she laughed.

"I'm not interested in him. I swear, but he is cute. If he gets popular after this lots of people will want to date him."

"Carlos doesn't date." I said and looked at Evie. She nodded. I looked at Lonnie to see what she would say next.

"Maybe not before but this is a new place. With new people." She shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised if someone caught his eye here."

I looked down at Carlos not sure what to think about all of this because on the one hand Lonnie was right. We weren't in the Isle anymore. If he wanted he would be able to date.

I saw some of the cheerleaders not flirting with Jay high-fiving Carlos and I pursed my lips.

"Good for him." I said and then turned around and left now in a bad mood.

It had nothing to do with what Lonnie said. I wasn't even interested in Carlos. Carlos was younger than me for crying out loud! He was a dweeb! He-

_"__Hi__," __The__little__boy__said__. __I__blinked__at__him__. __He__was__small__. __Smaller__than__me__. __He__had__black__hair__, __white__at__the__top__. __With__the__biggest__brown__eyes__I've__ever__seen__._

_"__You__look__nice__." __I__told__him__._

_He__flinched__like__I__had__hit__him__. "__I'm__sorry__."_

_"__I'll__protect__you__if__you__want__." __I__said__and__smiled__at__him__._

_His__mouth__dropped__. "__Y-you__would__?"_

_"__Why__not__?" __I__glared__at__him__. "__A__girl__can__do__anything__a__boy__can__but__better__."_

_"__I__believe__you__. __You__could__take__down__a__dragon__."_

_I__laughed__. __The__hero__stories__ran__through__my__head__. "__I'll__be__the__knight__in__shinning__armor__and__you__be__the__Princess__."_

_He__frowned__in__distaste__. "__A__Prince__."_

_"__Okay__. __Whatever__you__want__." __I__said__with__a__laugh__._

_I__was__starting__to__think__he__was__going__to__be__my__friend__when__Mom__showed__up__and__shoved__the__boy__back__._

_"__Mom__, __no__! __He's__my__friend__!"_

_Mom__glared__at__me__and__I__gasped__scared__. "__You__stay__away__from__this__filthy__mutt__, __you__hear__me__?" __She__grabbed__me__by__my__chin__, __squeezing__so__hard__tears__came__to__my__eyes__. __Her__eyes__glowed__green__. "__Do__you__hear__me__, __Mal__Bertha__?"_

_"__Okay__, __okay__. __I'll__stay__away__."_

_Mom__sneered__at__the__boy__and__then__stomped__away__. __I__turned__to__the__boy__, __wiping__the__tears__from__my__eyes__. "__I'm__sorry__."_

_"__Mal__!" __Mom__snapped__._

_I__looked__at__the__boy__in__his__eyes__one__last__chance__before__I__walked__away__._

I walked away from him.

I walked away from Carlos. I had said I wouldn't but I had.

I was reaching the bottom of the bleachers when I looked out into the field again and saw Carlos getting hugged by one of the cheerleaders.

Something squeezed weirdly in my chest and I turned away.

What was wrong with me?


	19. 19) The Possibilities Are Endless

When Evie made it back to our dorm room I was still grumpy over what Lonnie had said.

"Hey," Evie said with a little too much carefulness.

"I don't like Carlos."

"I didn't say you did," Evie said gently.

I gritted my teeth. "Why would I even like him? He's a dork and a nerd and, fine, he can be brave when he wants to be and he's smart enough to have a conversation with him but that doesn't mean I like him."

"I know."

I crossed my hands. "Why would I like him anyway?" I turned to Evie.

"Well, he's never going to try and control you." Evie shrugged. "I think that's attractive."

I sighed, deflating a bit. "He's was born in the wrong place," I confessed. Evie watched me but I couldn't face her as I said, "He's one of the best people from the Isle. I'd known that since we were kids." I scoffed. "He always tried to get my approval but really he was good and brave already. Braver than me." Something wet fell down my cheek and I gasped. "What?" I wiped my eyes clean. "Oh no. Why am I crying?" I groaned.

"Why are you crying?" Evie asked and I sighed thinking of the answer.

The thing about me is that I'm honest. To a fault. So when Evie asked me that and I considered the truth I faced it easily enough. Actually, it wasn't easy to face. I gasped when the truth hit me in the face like cold water.

"Because...because I do have feelings for Carlos." I turned to Evie, who grinned slowly at me. I groaned and flopped down on the bed. "I don't like this feeling, E! It sucks."

"But you do like Carlos." She sing-sang.

I sat up and threw her a pillow. "Ugh. Don't remind me."

Evie caught the pillow. "Are you going to do something about it?" Evie asked and I didn't know what to say for the most part. What could I do?

I realized then that me being lovey dove about Carlos made me forget about the coronation and Ben's decision.

"What can I do?"

"The possibilities are endless." She said calmly. Hinting at what we both knew.

"You're right," I said. "I just feel so conflicted, E. I'm going to let down Mom. I've never wanted to do anything like that."

Evie nodded at my words, eyes full of understanding. "I know, Mal. And I hate that you're put in this position but we have a chance to be happy now." She sighed. "We can be happy, Mal. Happy." Tears welled in her eyes. "Us, the other kids from the Isle. All the hell we grew up in, the hell we went through, it's going to be over soon."

"Do you think it'd be that easy?" I asked just as a knock came to the door and Jane opened the door with a smile.

"I half-heard the conversation, what will be half-easy?"

I shared a look with Evie and then I stood up and pulled Jane inside, closing the door behind her.

"What?" She asked looking between us.

"Jane," I said, looking once more at the closed door. "Ben said we could stay here."

Jane blinked and it almost looked like she was surprised but then she giggled. "I know. I like having you guys here."

I grinned at Evie before turning back to Jane. "We like being here, too. It's weird being here."

Jane cocked her head to the left, "Weird how?"

"Everything is so bright and nice. It's like..." I glanced at Evie before continuing. "It's heaven here. It takes a lot for us to process that we're here to stay."

I was so excited and in the moment that I jumped when Jane gasped, grabbed at her head, and then watched as she fell back to the ground with a thud.

"Jane!" Evie and I both said at the same time, running to where she was groaning on the floor.

"I'm fine." She slurred out, sitting up. She was shaking.

"You should talk to your Mom, Jane. This could be serious." I said.

Evie nodded along with me. "Is this what you were talking about in lunch?"

"It's fine." Jane rubbed at her eyes, her shaking had stopped. She stood up and looked at us with a smile. "I swear, I'm okay. It's probably the heat. I haven't showered either." She frowned at us but then smiled. "It's seriously fine. Do you have some water?"

"Not with us," Evie said, worry in her tone.

"I'll go get some water. I'm fine." Jane cleared her throat and walked out of there, giving us one last smile.

"Do you think she's okay?" I asked.

"I hope so. Should we check on her?"

"I don't think she wants us to worry about her."

"True." Evie still looked concerned.

"Hey, we'll check on her later."

"You're right." Evie sighed, rubbing at her forehead. "I've never seen someone faint."

"Let's just be glad it was only for a second." I hadn't realized I was so worried until I had picked up my pillow from Evie's bed and placed it on my bed.

First Lonnie teased me about Carlos, then I realized I did have feelings for Carlos, and now Jane had a small fainting spell. I'm just lucky this all distracted me from my problem with Mom and the other kids from the Isle.

I was still feeling tense over that, too, but like I was telling Jane we were in heaven now. We were safe.

Ben was on our side and on Friday he would be King. No one and nothing could defy him. We were safe. Like Evie said: the possibilities were endless.


	20. 20) Old and New

Before dinner I had no idea how to act around Carlos. Not that I wanted to act any weird way. What would be the point of that? No, I just didn't want to-I didn't know how to act around him now.

I barely figured out I had feelings for him. I had no idea what to do with that knowledge. Should I do anything?

At lunch I sat across from Jay, and did my best not to act nervous or weird. It didn't work but thankfully Jay and Carlos misunderstood why I was acting strange.

"The coronation's this Friday." Jay said, breaking the awkward silence.

Jay jumped and I saw Evie glaring at him. I held back a smirk. She had kicked him under the table.

"Why, Evie? Damn." Jay groaned.

"Leave it. We already talked." Evie said.

"That's the thing, isn't it?" Carlos spoke up making all three of us turn to him. "You two talk and keep everything between the two of you, but we're part of this group, too."

Jay nodded. "Exactly. And I know this is hard but this doesn't just affect you, Mal. This affects us, too." I sighed at this.

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Jay." Evie said in a low voice.

"No, E, let him talk. Go ahead, Jay." I said, voice steely.

Jay breathed in. "Fine. Ever since we were little I've done everything for you because you've always been smart. So much smarter than me but now," he paused and I resisted the urge to tense up because I knew it was going to get ugly when he spoke next, "you're letting your feelings cloud your judgment," I sucked in a breath. Evie tensed up and Carlos looked from Jay to me, "I need to think of us now. I know you think you're the only one that matters but that's not true. We matter, too." And then Jay breathed out quietly, stood up calmly and in the least attention-getting way walked out of the cafeteria. He did such a good job that no one looked over.

"If you have anything to say," I told Carlos, both Evie and Carlos tensing up at my cold tone, "say it now. This is your only chance."

"I-I just wish you'd trust me." Carlos stammered out.

I couldn't hold in the small gasp at his words and I, unlike Jay, did stand up and made a small commotion. I had to put on a smile to mask why I had stood up the way I had.

The kids here frowned, obviously smarter than I gave them credit for, but then Evie and Carlos waved at them and I can't even begin to explain the level of humiliation I felt when instead of the kids here looking away they smiled back relieved and some even waved back.

I felt flushed. "I'm going to bed," I said to no one in specific, voice low enough so that only they could hear me and then I made my way out of the cafeteria, grinning a little more tightly to whomever still was looking over.

As soon as I stepped out into the hallway humiliation -a feeling I was not used to- bubbled into a boil.

Tears welled up in my eyes and I hated that in the span of a few hours I've already cried twice.

It wasn't fair.

It was even more annoying that it was Jay and Carlos who made me react this way. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. They were my friends. Why-how-how were they the ones hurting me?

There was also a part of me that was angry and jealous. Because Jay was right. I've always put myself first and even today Evie perfectly demonstrated how they all coddled me. Even Carlos, who was so nice and soft and like a little puppy himself, watched what he did around me. He did everything to appease me.

I lived for making everyone afraid of me but now, now I didn't know how to love and it was breaking my heart that it was Jay who made me see that because Jay is my best friend in the whole wide world.

And if he hated me, too, then I didn't know how to keep going.

I didn't want to be alone.

Alone meant weakness.

It meant getting advantaged of.

It meant being so unworthy of love that you understood how worthless you really were.

Tears clouded my eyes and I was glad I was alone as I ran to my room crying.

When Evie made it back to the room I was still crying to my everlasting shame.

"Jay knows you care about us. He's just stressing out about everything." Evie said, apologizing for him.

"No, you don't have to explain," I said wiping hastily at my eyes. "You don't get to apologize for him, E. Anyway, I can't say he's wrong. I've kept you guys at arm's length the last few days. That's not what we do as friends. We don't have to fight to survive anymore, but that doesn't mean we get to turn our backs on one another. Jay is right." I said with a sigh.

"I mean no offense but the old you would've never said that," Evie said cautiously, breaking out a smile when I laughed.

"Yeah, well, I'm dumb now apparently."

Evie rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I love him, but Jay was out of line. He knows he's wrong."

"Is he? I mean, look me in the eye and don't tell me you never felt like I put you on the back burner, too."

"We were in the Isle. What else could you do?"

"Be a better friend?"

"Well, yeah, but you're being a better friend now. Just the fact that you're talking to me about this is a big deal. They will get their day with you, but I'm not for sharing you with them right now." Evie joked.

I grinned at her, "Thanks, E. You've been the better person."

Evie shrugged, "Eh. But now, you're doing better so we need to do homework. I know, I know but we're here to stay and that means homework. To be fair, homework was part of the deal no matter where we were, but we get to be something here, M."

I sat up. I was going to groan dramatically again but Evie was right. "You're right. We can be anything we want to be." I gasped at her. "The possibilities really are endless."

"I told you,"

Guilt gripped my heart, "I've always wanted to be bad to the bone and now that I'm choosing myself over my Mom I've never felt like the worst."

Evie sat next to me on the bed, "Hey, you don't love her any less, but now you're choosing yourself. I'm proud of you."

Tears welled in my eyes for a second before I blinked them away forcefully. "Thanks." I laughed. "Now, homework."

Evie nodded, letting me lead us to homework. Honestly, she was an angel. She and Carlos never deserved being born in the Isle. But I'm glad I met them. In a sick, twisted way, it was meant to be.

The following morning at breakfast we were in stony silence again. I made eye contact with Carlos but made sure to ignore Jay. I was still feeling raw over what he had said to me. How dare he even think that I think they don't matter. They're my best friends. Jay can be such a jerk sometimes.

When we made it to remedial goodness class I was still in stony silence, Jay was acting like he didn't care, and both Evie and Carlos were trying to stay as upbeat as possible. With all our attitudes it was no wonder that Fairy Godmother caught on to how weird we were acting.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Nothing." All four of us said as one. I gritted my teeth at hearing Jay's voice.

Jerk.

Fairy Godmother wasn't one to be deterred apparently because she put her hands on her hips and stared us down. "Okay, that's fine. We don't have to talk about it, but I would like some participation from all four of you, will that be alright?"

"Yes." We all said as one again.

"Okay. That's good."

We did participate. We knew better than to get on Fairy Godmother's bad side. We'd only known her for a few days so I even wondered if she even had a bad side, but I wasn't about to try an experiment and find out.

With class and the day half-over, I was pretending that Carlos didn't have two girls talking and laughing with him. I knew better to be jealous. He was the least offensive of us all. Evie was busy with Lonnie this afternoon and I knew Jay had charm for days. I was the only one struggling with talking with the others. In a way, I was jealous of my friends. How did they find it easy to socialize?

"Hey, Mal." I turned to Jane and stared at her.

"You really look tired, Jane. Are you sure you're okay?"

Jane rubbed at her eyes, smiling at me through the pain. "Yeah, it's a recent thing. I don't know why it's been happening."

"How recent?" Mal asked.

"Oh, you know? A few months."

I blinked, "Jane, this isn't normal. If you're having continuous nightmares and almost fainting it could be serious."

Jane waved me off, "I'm fine, Mal. I promise."

"But-"

"No, I'm sorry. I like you, but I need you to stop telling me what to do." Jane snapped and I gaped at her. Her eyes widened and she quickly covered her mouth in shock. "I'm so sorry, Mal. I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me." Before I could even say something she walked away from me.

"What was that?" Jay asked.

"I don't know," I said, then remembered that I was angry at him and backed away from him.

"Seriously, you're doing this?" Jay asked.

I gave him a look, "Are you really surprised?" I didn't wait for his answer, "You really think I don't care about you and the others?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it?"

"You said I think you don't matter, that means you think I don't care about you. What part am I not understanding?"

"I-" I waited for him to continue. "It's just not fair, okay? I'm always doing everything for you and I want this Mal. No one steals here, I don't have to wake up every few hours because I think someone's going to steal from me. I can rest easy knowing that no one can kill me here. Why don't you see that this is the best thing that could've happened?" I swallowed thickly.

"I do know."

"Do you?"

"Yes," I snapped. "You think I don't see that we're finally free? Do you think I like hating myself because I'm stuck between you and Mom, Jay, it's not fair! You're supposed to be my best friend and you're turning your back on me! You're nothing but a jerk!" I hadn't meant to get angry but I had. The worst part was that I shouted the last part and since we were outside we caught the attention of a few of the students around us.

I didn't care. I was under a lot of stress. I slammed my locker shut and stormed away, biting my bottom lip to keep myself from crying, because I was not going to be weak in front of all these pampered, spoiled kids who had no idea what pain was. They were a bunch of-

"Hey, are you okay?" I stopped when I noticed the person that was talking to me was Lonnie.

"I-fine. Just a fight."

"I'm sorry. Do you want space?"

"You guys are all really nice here, you know that?"

For a second Lonnie looked surprised, but then she grinned, "We try." She raised her dress. "I was just on my way to your room, want to walk together?"

"Sure." We were walking for only a few seconds before I decided I needed to save my pride. "I'm not going to go evil, just so you know."

Understanding, or something like it, covered her face, her eyes. "I know that, Mal. We all have bad days."

"You guys really are too good to be true."

"Maybe it was a rough start because it was something new, but I'm happy that Ben is a saint. That he's helping and stood by his decision."

"I heard he and Audrey aren't exactly popular right now."

Lonnie winced. "Yeah, that's unfortunately true, but that's changing. I'm sorry we couldn't be better people."

"You're fine. We're used to it."

"Well, you shouldn't. That's not how life is supposed to be."

"How is life supposed to be? Because all my life lessons were about staying alive and never letting anyone know your weaknesses."

"It was the opposite of that," Lonnie said gently, but it was too funny that I laughed. She laughed along with me. "I'm still learning so don't take me seriously."

"I'm learning, too." I said and decided that I needed to work on my socializing and Lonnie made it easy to talk to her so I said, "Thanks for talking to me. I know that was a risky move."

"Thanks for not biting my head off."

"Oh, I wouldn't have bitten your head off. Maybe your arm." I shrugged and Lonnie laughed at my joke. I smirked, pleased with myself.

Things weren't fine with Jay but I was getting along with Lonnie and that was enough for now.


	21. 21) Black Mist

**This chapter is dark.**

Dinner was a bust. I don't even want to remember how awkward things were with Jay and I ignoring each other. It was true that back in the Isle we would've acted the same way, but Jay's never spoken to me about the things he's thought about ever. It infuriated me that he could think that I would abandon him and the others. Who did that jerk think he is?

At bedtime, when Evie told me she was going to with the boys and asked me if I wanted to come I shook my head.

"Next time."

"Okay. I'll make sure Carlos isn't in love with anyone else," She teased and dodged my pillow with a laugh. "I like this new you."

"Whatever," I said with a smile.

After she left I did my homework -how boring of me- went through the internet searching for something fun to do and when that didn't give me anything interesting, I sat back and decided to look for my book of spells. For a second I panicked when I couldn't find it under my pillow like it was supposed to be. I actually found it on my purse which was weird because I was sure that I hadn't left it there.

I let this pass and read through it, finding the most interesting spells that I didn't want to use at the moment. We were lucky, one more day, in less than 24 hours actually Ben was about to change the lives of everything in the Isle, everyone in Auradon as well, to be clear, and I was more than ready for it, for this.

I did feel bad, but in a way, I shouldn't, right? Betraying my Mom was an evil thing to do and that was the only thing,

"Get up."

I jumped when I saw that it was Jane.

"Jane, what?-" I froze when she raised the wand and it sparkled with magic. "Jane, what are you doing?" I asked slowly.

"I'm not going to let you ruin my plan, baby," and for a second I was lost and confused but then tensed up.

"M-Mom?"

"Like my new body, baby? Isn't it just delicious? I can live out longer in this one if I stayed. Us looking the same age doesn't change the fact I'm your Mother. Never forget who's in charge."

"Mom, what are you doing? Why are you-how are you-" I shook my head, heart aching as I realized why Jane had been having weird dreams and the fainting spell yesterday, "how long have you been possessing her?"

"A year. It was slow work, but I'm not afraid of waiting forever if it meant taking my revenge. I was going to let you take the wand yourself and then take over this body permanently, but you've let yourself be fooled into a sense of comfort. It won't be long before they make you leave as well."

"No, Mom, they..." I stopped. Mom didn't know about Ben's plan. "Maybe they're different." I said instead, hiding the truth I knew as best as possible.

"You have always been naive, Mal Bertha. Have I thought you nothing?" I shivered because the anger that distorted Jane's pretty features was familiar now. "You never trust anyone. Except for me, of course."

"I know, Mom, but-"

"But you're in love with the mutt. He's the one that made you weak. I always knew. Ever since I first told you to stay away from him I knew he would be contagious. Why did you never listen to your Mother? Don't you know I know what's best for you?"

"I don't think you know what's best for anyone." The words came out before I could even think them through.

The slap I saw coming.

I turned to her and tensed up when she raised her hand at me again. "Don't ever talk to me that way, do you understand?"

"I can't take you very seriously in this body." I snarked.

Mom slapped me again but I didn't care. She took over my friend's body and I was going to get her out.

"Stop fighting me, Mal Bertha. I am your Mother."

"You don't know the first thing about-"

"What's going on here?" It was Jay. I tensed up again because Mom could hurt him.

"Jay, go away!" I snapped.

"Shut up, Mal. I came to apologize to you. You can't just-"

"Oh, shut up!" Mom raised the wand but I slammed into her and the magic that would've hit Jay square in the chest, hit the wall and fire sprouted from the air for a second before it fizzled out.

"It's Mom! Get help!" I shouted and to my surprise Mom punched me in the face.

"You're being a bad little girl, little dragon." Mom said, standing up and glaring at me.

I did the stupid thing of instead of heading toward the door so I could get out of the room, I cornered myself by the window. The worst happened because Mom pointed the wand at me again, Jay running off behind her, and one second later a huge blast of power threw me off backward, out the window and I rolled over the bushes before falling with a hard thud to the ground.

I groaned, my abdomen hurting like crazy and I tried not to cry out in pain as I forced myself to stand up. It was hard work, but I managed to do it. Behind me I heard some glass breaking and turned in time to get backhanded in the face and falling on the ground again.

I sobbed as I clutched at both my face and stomach. I opened my eyes, tears spilling down my cheeks, and glared up at Mom. She was smirking and it was horrifying how scary Jane seemed with a smirk.

"Why didn't you tell me it was you?" I gritted out.

"I wanted to see if I could trust you." Mom said, Jane's voice sounding sure and scary because of Mom. "Obviously, I couldn't."

"I tried."

"Not hard enough. One sniff of _heaven_ and you turn your back on your dear Mama? I have to say I'm surprised. You were always very weak and spoiled."

"That is not true," I said.

"You had the wand within your reach and you didn't even try to get it when the alarm went off. You ran off at the first sign of danger; that's weakness, honey."

My bottom lip wobbled. Mom sneered down at me.

"See? Weak." Mom twirled the wand for a second, "You know I'm a little rusty, let me see how good I still am." She giggled at her own pun. Mom didn't explain what she did, all she did was raised the wand up at the sky and light shot out of the wand. One second the afternoon twilight turned to a sunny afternoon. I stared up at our surroundings and froze when the sight seemed familiar. The school was behind us but from where we were the place looked like an open field, an open meadow.

"Mom, you have to stop this." I pleaded, not sure what I was asking for exactly.

"No." Mom said simply and raised her hand again and this time there was a huge ripple coming from the Isle. I stared in horror as the barrier was slowly going down. If the villains got a taste of the magic they would be able to hurt all the people in Auradon.

I couldn't let that happen.

"Mom," I said but before I could say anything more, just like yesterday Jane's eyes rolled behind her head and she fell down to the floor, unconscious.

I gasped and ran to her side, grabbing the wand because maybe Mom was out of her now and-

"Give me the wand and I'll forgive your foolishness."

I whipped around with a gasp and saw that Mom was there. I looked down at the wand clutched in my sweaty hand and shook my head, using my body to shelter Jane's unconscious one.

"I can't." I said, voice thick from fear and pain.

"You were always a disappointment, Mal Bertha, but this takes the cake." Mom said with a sad sigh and I tried not to wince.

"I've always done everything for you, my whole life."

"You didn't try very hard." Mom said, waving me off.

"Have you ever thought that maybe the only reason I couldn't make you proud was because you don't love me?" I asked feeling slightly dizzy as I confronted Mom with the one truth I was holding deep inside my mind, poisoning everything within me.

"Love is weakness, baby, remember that."

"I love you. Does that still make me weak?" I croaked out.

"Yes, yes, always yes," Mom cackled, "but don't lie to me, baby, you don't love me enough to put your wishes aside. You were selfish enough to put yourself first."

"There's to I in team." I said repeating one of Jafar's key phrases.

"Maybe you're not a total loss, after all."

"Oh my god, Jane!" I heard Fairy Godmother cry behind me. It was in that second, that small second of me being distracted that the wand flew out of my hand and then Mom was holding both her wand and after a twirl of her wand and a yell of, "Scepter, now!" she had both the wand and the scepter.

I gagged at how powerful the pull to the scepter was now.

I turned around to see Evie, Jay, Carlos, Audrey, Ben, and even some others running over, some stopping when they saw Mom, while others only ran faster.

It was then that I realized that as cold as these kids were they would run half-cocked, without-a-plan, into danger. Mom would kill them.

I needed to keep that from happening.

"Mom, don't do this!" I cried out as Fairy Godmother reached Jane and kneeled down next to her, checking her over. I stood over them as best as I could. When Jay and the others got close enough I raised my hand, red with something, and told them, "Stop! Don't get closer." I turned to Mom and said, "Mom, please, don't hurt them."

"Tell me again why I should feel proud of you?" Mom said, voice enraged and her eyes flickered to the familiar hot green that meant she was angry. I fought down the fear that crawled up my spine and stared her down.

"I don't want you proud of me if it means innocent people get hurt. I don't like hurting people, Mom. I just want-"

"You'll never get what you want. Don't you see it, baby? You're nothing but the spawn of an evil Fairy. They're never going to see you beyond that."

I lost my will for a second because she was right.

"That's not true." Ben said.

"Ben, don't." I snapped and opened my arms wide like that would somehow protect him from a spell Mom used. When I saw her raised her scepter, I acted on the call to it, and said, "Scepter, now!"

In the shock of the moment, Mom let go of the scepter and it came flying to me hands. It felt like unbridled power, humming with intensity. I felt drunk off of it.

"Mom, don't do anything reckless." I warned.

"Or what?"

"Don't test me." I warned again.

"Or what, Mal Bertha?" Maleficent asked, eyes shining green as black mist surrounded her and I knew she was going to transform into her dragon form. If she did that more people would get hurt and with tears in my eyes I knew what I needed to do.

I grabbed the scepter with both hands and breathed in deeply, before snapping the scepter in two.

Mom gasped as the black mist disappeared and she got her shape back. She clutched at her heart and I stared horrified as she began to dissolve.

"My little dragon," Mom said and she was smiling and I felt lightheaded as I watched her disappear in the air.

I didn't realize I had dropped the broken scepter, I didn't realize that the screaming I was hearing was me, all that I remember clearly was Mom's smile as she died because of me.


	22. 22) Waking Up

I lost track of time. At first, there were people surrounding me, touching me, telling me things in a language I couldn't understand. Then there were people who helped me change into different clothes and put me to bed. I would wake up from dreaming I hurt my Mom to strangers telling me that everything was okay, that I was fine, that I was safe.

But I wasn't safe, I wasn't okay, I was barely sane.

It was some time later, when I woke up and groggily stared up at the world around me that I noticed that someone was sitting by my bed. I squinted my eyes to make the person out and recognized Ben.

"What time is it?" I croaked out.

Ben, who had been in the middle of dozing off, sat up straight and stared at me for a few seconds before he smiled and reached out for my hand, "You're awake. Would you like some water?"

"Yes," My voice was thick from how dry my throat was.

Ben was kind enough not to point it out and gave me some water to drink, it was while drinking that I noticed he was wearing some nurse clothes.

"Why are you wearing that?"

"They're for my protection."

"Protection from what exactly?" I asked, tired and not really paying attention to our conversation.

"What do you remember?" Ben asked instead.

"I know what I did, Ben. I dream about it," I snapped, but then my anger deflated, "I'm sorry, I'm just..." I trailed off unable to explain my feelings right then and there. "Are you taking turns watching me? I think I remember Audrey asking me if I was hungry."

"We just wanted to check up on you. Fairy Godmother wanted us to let you rest, but we couldn't leave you alone. Not now."

I glared at him, "I'm fine, Ben. I don't need anyone protecting me."

"You protected me. Do you remember that?" Ben asked.

I sighed. "Don't use that against me to win this argument."

"I'm not. I'm just saying being there for one another, that's what friends do, and you've proven you're my friend. I'd like to be here for you if I can. That's what I'd like to do as your friend."

Tears welled up in my eyes, "Fine, whatever. I just want to go to sleep again."

"Okay. Would you like more water?"

"Yes."

This pattern continued on with the others. Audrey, Evie, Carlos, even Lonnie and Chad showed up once together. Lonnie had brought me some chocolates while Chad had just stood in the background. I don't remember correctly because everything happened very fast, and I hated thinking back on it, but I think he had been one of the few people that had charged when they saw Mom there.

I guess I had to prove I was worthy of being here and doing what I did proved it. I honestly don't think I wanted to prove anything or had anything to prove, but at least something good came out of this.

After three days of everyone constantly checking in on me I made sure to tell them that I needed space and then they all backed off.

It was nice to know that they listened when I said something. A huge difference from back in the Isle.

I tried not thinking much about the Isle because those thoughts led to Mom and I didn't want to think about what I've done.

Instead, I waited for Jay to show up. He was the only one who hadn't shown up and I wasn't sure why.

When he did he came with flowers.

"Really? Flowers? Should I be insulted?"

Jay's nervous demeanor changed into a soft glare, "Shut up; and it's a compliment."

"Alright, I accept." I grinned at him but when he didn't grin back I frowned. "What?"

"I'm so sorry, Mal." Jay said, voice thick and eyes watering, "I...it's my fault all of this happened."

"What do you mean it's your fault?" I asked. "Did you know Mom was possessing Jane?"

"No! I'd never keep my mouth shut about that. No, I just...I messed up at the museum on purpose."

I burrowed my brow, "What do you mean you messed up on purpose?"

"I knew that there was a second alarm. There's always a second alarm. Only an idiot wouldn't know that something so powerful was protected with as many alarms as humanly possible. I just," He paused, voice breaking, "I wanted to be free, Mal. I didn't want to go back. I love my Dad, I do, but I had my family with me already. Dad had his chance to live a good life and he messed it up. I wasn't going to mess it up, but I risked my friendship with you by doing that, and then it got so much worse when because of my betrayal Jane was possessed and now you're hurt and," Jay stopped and doesn't continue.

"First of all," I begin, voice steady and even, "it wasn't your fault. Everything that happened: not your fault. Second of all, Mom had been possessing Jane for a whole year now. That wasn't on anyone either. And third, you think I'm your family?" I asked, my voice breaking near the end.

Jay stared at me confounded, "Yes, you've always been my favorite person in the whole world. I could tell you anything and you wouldn't judge me. I don't even care that we're not blood, you're my sister till the end of time."

I sniffled, "You dork. You're my favorite person, too. I really missed you."

"It was the secret; it was eating me alive but I didn't want you to hate me."

"Jay, you just said that you triggered the alarm to take care of your family, I can never hold that against you. Never ever."

Jay laughed, "Auradon has made you soft." He teased.

"You know it."

It was all good fun until Jay's eyes got sad for a second too long, "How are you holding up?"

"As well as can be imagined. I haven't been able to leave. Fairy Godmother says I need to be 'okay' before I go but I feel fine already."

"Do you?" Jay asked.

"How do you think I'm holding up?"

"I think you're trying to cope the best way you can and because of that I think Fairy Godmother is right."

"Wow, Jay, right where it hurts."

"It's supposed to hurt, Mal. It's the truth. We all care about you so much and right now, after what happened, you need to take care of yourself."

"I am taking care of myself," I snapped; when I saw Jay purse his lips I sighed, "I'm just tired of being bored. I don't have anything to do. I don't want to think, Jay, not right now, not about what I did."

"Hey," He began, grabbing on to my hand and making sure I was looking at him when he continued with, "that is not on you. It was an impossible situation. You did what you've always done, you protected the people you care about," this got too touchy-feely for me and I tried to pull my hand back but Jay held strong, "I'm not done," I glared at him defiantly, blinking as much as I could to keep the tears away but they just kept forming, "you are one of the bravest people I've ever met, you would go to hell and back for the people you care about, and you may not show it, but you've got one of the biggest hearts out there. We grew up rough, Mal, we know what the dark side of life looks like and instead of letting that turn you bitter you've developed one of the biggest hearts anyone could have. In my eyes, you're a hero."

My lip wobbled and I pulled away roughly, avoiding his eyes, "You're too soft sometimes, Jay." I muttered quietly.

"I love you, too," Jay said firmly.

"You're brave, too, you know?" I said, and glanced only when I finished talking.

"I know." Jay said with his familiar smirk and I rolled my eyes.

I let myself relax as we fell into our old familiar banter. Maybe it hadn't fixed how heartbroken I felt but it was a start.


	23. 23) Waking Up

The next time I woke up I breathed in deeply and, my eyes still closed, I heard some shuffled, whispered words and then when I opened my eyes Carlos and Evie were there.

"Mal," Carlos said with a relieved smile. I was still half-asleep when I said,

"Carlos, you're here."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"How do you feel?" Evie asked, and my sleep-addled mind focused on her.

"Fine." I turned back to Carlos. "Is everyone okay?"

"Yes, we're all fine. How do you feel?" He asked.

I gave them both a look. "Thirsty."

"I'll get her water," Carlos said and didn't even wait for Evie to argue, he just got up and left to get the water.

"Hey, M," Evie said with a relieved smile.

"I'm okay." I said with finality.

"I know. I won't ask again." Evie said, raising her hand to her heart, "Wicked promise."

I sighed. "How long have I been asleep?"

"It's been a few days."

"How long has it been since it happened?" I asked, not beating around the bush.

Evie licked her lips nervously but she told me the truth like I knew she would, "5 days."

"Wow." I said with a little shock. "I can't believe that there's time after death." Evie winced. "Sorry, I deal with things head on. I don't mean to-"

"Don't apologize." Evie said, interrupting me. "Never apologize to me, M, you did something I can't ever imagine doing. You never have to explain yourself to me."

"I feel like I'm drowning. " I whispered to her, because I felt paranoid that someone else would hear me.

"It'll feel like that for a while, I think." Evie said, tone apologetic, "but you're strong. You can handle anything. I know that for a fact."

"What if I can't?" I asked, voice thick with emotion.

"We'll be here for you, you're not alone."

Tears welled in my eyes and I would've let myself tear up but then Carlos was walking back into the little room and I wiped my eyes quickly. It was doing this that let me look at the room around me for the first time. It was yellow, roomy, and it was only me here. There were a lot of flowers and packages here.

"Where am I?"

"It's a private room in the hospital. Ben wanted you to have privacy while you got better."

"What's with all the goodies?"

Evie and Carlos shared a look.

"They're from people from Auradon."

I gritted my teeth. "They're thanking me for killing my Mom?"

"No!" Carlos and Evie said at the same time.

"They're just-"

"They wanted to-"

They stopped, both trying to let the other speak first but it wasn't working out for either of them.

"They know that it was an awful thing, Mal. They're worried about you."

"Get rid of them." I said.

"Mal, it's really not-"

I interrupted Evie with, "Just get rid of them, please!"

When they didn't do anything, I closed my eyes, willed my magic to come to me, the magic of Auradon wrapping itself around me like a cacoon and I imagined all the dirty gifts away from here. I felt a headache coming but I didn't care, because when I opened my eyes, all the bouquets and little goodies were gone. I glared at the now empty room.

"I want to get out of here. I'm tired of being cooped up." I said.

"We'll tell her." Carlos said, voice softer, and I winced because I didn't want to be rude to my friends, I didn't want to be rude to Carlos.

"I just want people to back off, to stop treating me like I'm weak."

"I can promise you no one thinks that of you." Evie said reassuringly.

I grinned, appreciating her attempt to cheer me up but I wasn't in the mood.

"I'm hungry," I said.

"I'll go get some food for you." Evie said, standing up and this time she left before Carlos could even argue.

I sighed when it was just Carlos and me. We met each other's eyes and I tried to smile but I couldn't. I still felt like crying but I didn't want to cry around Carlos.

Obviously, the feeling didn't go away and tears blurred my vision anyway and I wiped roughly at my eyes. "Don't tell me it's fine."

"Why would I lie to you?" Carlos said and that only made me tear up even more.

"You're a jerk sometimes, you know?"

"Had to be, the way we grew up."

He was smirking at me; it made me relax enough to grin at me.

"Are the good people of Auradon really up to no evil?"

"What happened," Carlos began softly, "it was a wake-up call to them," he cleared his throat, "I think now that the rest of the kids from the Isle are here, more people are volunteering and-"

"Wait, what?" I asked, mind reeling at this new information.

"Ben didn't tell you? Of course, he didn't tell you, it's probably overwhelming information. The coronation passed, Ben was flooded with people asking to take kids from the Isle in if there weren't enough rooms in here," Carlos licked his lips, "maybe what happened led to something good."

"I did something bad, Carlos. Something truly bad," tears blurred my vision again but I didn't wipe them away, I didn't want to see the world around me; the blurred vision made the world slow down around me and that's what I needed, a break, "I don't know how I can cope."

A tear fell down my cheek and right when I was raising my hand to wipe it away, something warm and soft wiped it for me and I gasped; more tears fell as I turned to Carlos, who had pulled his hand away at my gasp.

"Sorry." He said, sitting back.

"No, it's fine. I can't believe I'm someone who cries," I joked to let the awkward moment pass. But of course I'm in a cry-ey mood so I began to tear up again, "I hate it," I wiped my eyes clean.

"I think it makes you human," Carlos said softly.

"Technically I'm only half-human, so I shouldn't be so emotional."

"When have you ever done anything someone or something tells you to do?"

I wanted to be snarky but only laughed, "You're right."

"I usually am," Carlos said with a smirk.

We both laughed together for a second and as I looked at him in the eyes I noticed how good he was to me, how _kind_, and it made my heart flutter. I glanced away just as Evie arrived with a tray of food.

"One soup coming up," She said with a smile.

"Thank goodness," I winced, "Wow, I really do belong here."

"You always did," Carlos said quietly and I chuckled.

"You are too sweet," And then I said the stupidest thing, "my friend."

Carlos laughed like it was nothing but I think I had just friendzoned Carlos and he hadn't even blinked an eye. Well, at least that proved that he didn't like me.

I pushed down that irritating disappointment and told myself to enjoy the soup but damn it, I was upset. Carlos didn't like me. He didn't like me.

Of course, he wouldn't.

He was too good and I was too evil.

He and I-

There was no he and I, we would never be our own little unit because he had too much self-respect.

Plus, I was always running away from things when they got tough. I did it when I was a child but I didn't want to do it now.

I could let go of Carlos, I thought, as I ate my soup and listened to Evie and Carlos' banter, joining in every once in a while. It would be fine.


	24. 24

I was allowed to leave the hospital room two days later. The attack to my stomach hadn't done any damage but it was healing slowly and it did hurt.

When I was able to leave the first thing I did was check on Jane.

I hadn't thought of what I would say to her but I needed to see for myself that she was fine.

"Hey," she said when she saw me by the door.

"How do you feel?" She winced. "Nevermind. I'm tired of being asked that, too."

Jane motioned to the chair next to her bed. "Want to sit?"

"Thanks."

Awkward silence.

I was trying not to cringe at how awkward I felt. In all my 16 years I never felt like this.

"I'm sorry." The words came out on their own but I still meant them. "I'm really sorry, Jane."

"It's not your fault."

"I still should've figured it out." I wiped my eyes dry and chuckled without mirth. "We had Evil class in the Isle and this was an actual example. I should've known."

"It's okay. I'm fine now. I wish people would stop worrying so much. I barely remember anything that happened."

"You don't remember?"

"Not really. I remember fainting in your room but after that it's all hazy."

"The good thing is you're safe now and that's all that matters." I saw that her room also had a lot of flowers and goodies. "You've had a lot of visitors?"

"Yeah. It's weird. People who never talked to me came and gave me cards and flowers and told me they were glad I was okay." Jane shook her head. "It's too much. Some of the people wouldn't glance twice at me and now they're acting like they care."

"People tend to only realize the worth of someone after the fact." I shrugged. "People are weird."

Jane laughed, "They are."

A knock came to the door as Fairy Godmother entered the room with a tray of food for Jane.

"It's dinner." Fairy godmother rolled the food tray over so Jane could eat. "You should eat something as well, Mal."

"Yeah. I'll see you later, Jane. Feel better."

Jane waved with the fork and I made my way down the infirmary out to the main school.

I wasn't in the mood to eat with the rest of Auradon Prep just yet so I hurried to the kitchen, grabbed a bowl of fruit and went back to my room. I'm sure that it was fine.

Half an hour later Evie entered the room with a big smile. "How do you feel?"

"Not as good as you. What's up?"

Evie ran over and sat down next to me, "Ben and I are working together to help the Isle kids acclimate to Auradon. This is going to change things for the better. I know it."

I grinned at her enthusiasm. "Good for you, E. You're the right person to speak for us Isle kids."

Evie beamed at me. "Thanks. You okay?"

"I am." I smiled at her.

"You don't need anything?"

I was about to say no when I groaned. "Ugh. Homework."

"Okay. I'll help you." Evie said bringing over a small bundle of books. I groaned again but decided to just do it without any more complaining. The faster I got started, the better.


	25. 25) Normalcy

Things around Auradon Prep changed with all the new Isle kids around. As much as the kids from Auradon Prep tried they still allowed their shock show sometimes and I understood why some of the kids from the Isle acted out. It was easier for younger kids, like Celia and Dizzy, to get along with the other kids. They were just happy to be around good things here.

It had been two weeks since Mom attacked and while I was trying to go back to normal, sometimes some of the VK kids stared at me during Remedial Goodness class. It was nearing the end of October and we found out that there was such a thing as Halloween. Every day in the Isle was Halloween for us, but this time they decided to throw a small party in the cafeteria. Audrey was part of the party committee so she planned it out with some of the other girls.

On the day of, I arrived early, not feeling like being stared at.

Jane still was in bed rest, although when I had visited her earlier she had said that she was feeling better but Fairy Godmother wanted her to rest a bit more.

I think in reality all the kids from Isle were ecstatic to be in a place where they could eat and experience the sun. I know I was when I first arrived here.

It had been a few weeks ago but it felt like a long time now.

Three whole weeks, that's how long I'd been here. Three whole weeks where my life as I knew it changed completely. Holy goblins.

"Mal?" I turned to Evie's side of the dorm room and she gave me a smile. "Are you okay?"

"People are going to keep asking me that, aren't they?"

"For the time being."

I sighed but knew it was easier to accept things if I just accepted they would happen.

"I won't ask anymore if it makes you feel better."

"No, I'd rather you ask me than others. I mean, other than Jane and Audrey, and the boys, and Ben...wow, a lot of people care about me."

Evie gave me a winning smile. "Come on, let's go grab breakfast." She said and led me to the now very full cafeteria.

There was a side for Auradon kids and for kids from the Isle. When Evie led us to a table with Audrey and Ben, and Carlos and Jay, plus Celia and Dizzy I knew that I belonged in the middle now. I was both part of Auradon and the Isle and that was never going to change.

I ate breakfast silently, the stares didn't last as much as I expected them too. When I got up to leave for class though I was stopped by Uma and her crew.

"I heard you fought your mother," Uma said, "that you chose to help Ben and the others."

"If you're going to call me a traitor-"

"No. You chose to save Ben, who you knew was going to bring us here." We both watched each other in silence. "I think we can co-exist here, can't we?" That was the closest she'd ever say we were even for how I treated her in the past. I needed more good things now than bad so I let go of my pride and nodded.

"We can," She offered me her hand to shake and as the rest of the school half-watched, I made peace with Uma.

Evie came over and gave them all a grin, "Today, I'll be giving tours if you guys are interested."

I let them go and sighed. This was a new beginning. Things were going to get better now. They had to.

"Hey." I turned to Carlos, who fell into step with me, "how are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

"Good."

We shared a smile. Ever since I woke up in the hospital wing and I sort of friendzoned Carlos I hadn't had time to think about my crush. It's been a tough few couple of days, but now that we were alone, I couldn't help but enjoy being in his presence. Carlos was always someone calming in my life. He gave me peace.

"Ready for class?" I asked, to change the topic.

"I'm always ready for class."

"Nerd," I said affectionately and together we made our way to the first class of the day.

By lunch, I caught sight of Jane and hurried to her side.

"Want to sit with me at lunch?" I asked.

"Yes," She said and together we walked to the lunch area, "There's so many people here." She said.

"I know, It makes the place lively."

"That's a good word to describe it."

We were the first ones at our table, that yes was directly in the middle of the sides. Audrey arrived next, looking tired.

"You okay?" Jane asked.

"It's the small party, it's taking a lot of my time." She said,

"Do you need help?" When Audrey looked ready to say no to Jane, Jane said, "Please, I'm fine. I could use the distraction."

"Okay, well, all we need to do is bring the cupcakes if you want to come with me."

"Yeah."

"Okay, after that, all we'll need is to get the punch ready and then we can have our little Halloween party. There'll be pizza, Mal, if you want to come."

"Sure, sounds like fun," I said, distractedly.

Halloween was a time for candy we found out, but we were just going to have a small pizza party, with some dancing and lots of treats. I wasn't sure if anything more was necessary for this kind of party but I let it go.

I sat next to Evie and Jay, Carlos hadn't arrived yet and enjoyed the pizza along with the others.

I was starting to drift off into my daydreams when Carlos arrived with Dude following after him and I had to admit I was excited to see little Dude.

"Come here, Dude," I said, leaning down and when he walked over, sniffing at my hand, I pulled him up in my lap and ran my fingers through his soft fur. Carlos, I saw, was getting pizza and I allowed myself to get distracted by Dude. "You're not so bad," I told him softly and he licked at my face.

It was only when the dancing began, that Evie and Jay went dancing together and I stayed behind, still a bit sore from the attack.

"Are you going to dance?" Carlos asked me.

"Not today. Are you?"

"I was thinking about it."

"I'll watch Dude for you while you go dance," I said, and we both turned to look at Dude, who was curled up in my lap.

"Okay, I'll be back." He ruffled Dude's head affectionately then scurried off to dance with Jay and Evie.

I watched them with a smile. I wasn't sure if life was going to ever feel normal (things felt a bit surreal what with everything that had just happened) but this felt like a nice beginning.


End file.
